The biggest questions heading into Oakland’s mayoral election

OAKLAND — In another world, the special election next week to find Oakland a new mayor might have been a top-billed event for a town in need of stable leadership.

Barbara Lee, the veteran of Congress and East Bay progressive icon, versus Loren Taylor, a former councilmember with policy smarts and a chip on his shoulder? Sounds like a real race — and recent polls indicate it has become one.

Five days before the April 15 election, however, turnout is strikingly low. Alameda County election officials said Thursday they had received mail-in ballots from under 14.5% of about 250,000 registered voters in Oakland.

For some context, countywide turnout was 24% a week before the general election last November. The two elections are not comparable and a drop-off was broadly predictable. But county Registrar of Voters Tim Dupuis said the turnout is “very low” compared to other recent elections.

With days to go, fallout from a high-profile corruption case involving ex-Mayor Sheng Thao seems to have eclipsed the public’s attention toward the Lee-Taylor showdown.

“People are fatigued,” said Ernestine Nettles, the president of Oakland’s League of Women Voters. “They are skeptical of our city and its leaders … That’s just the climate right now.”

The election will choose a new mayor from a pack of 10 candidates to complete Thao’s term through next November.

Voters will also decide on a sales tax measure city leaders say is crucial to helping stave off a budget crisis. And voters will fill an Oakland City Council seat in District 2 which spans Chinatown, Jack London Square and some areas south and east of Lake Merritt.

For voters who haven’t filled out a ballot, here are some of the biggest questions facing the mayoral race as Election Day nears.

What are the policy differences between Lee and Taylor?

The race between the two frontrunners appears to be close, but for most of the election cycle they have found remarkably few policies to disagree about. With less than usual to discuss, the discourse around the race has focused on broader political themes and the candidates’ financial ties and their political history.

Both want there to be more police officers in Oakland — at least 800, eventually. The department currently sits at around 680 sworn, though a measure approved by voters last November made needed parcel-tax revenue contingent on a minimum baseline of 700 cops on the force.

Taylor said he can get there faster than Lee, simply by using money that otherwise would go toward officer overtime. Lee speaks in a more restrained fashion about an officer hiring plan.

She is also far less interested in saving money for the city by laying off workers, which Taylor heavily intimates as the “hard choice” that he alone could make by standing up to the public labor unions backing his opponent.

Broadly, Lee has promised to wrangle state and federal money left over from before the Trump administration, which could be a tall task given the president’s unprecedented slashing of federal funding.

Lee has separately touted her ability to generate investments in the city. Her pitch is strengthened by her alliance with the city’s Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and donations from Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Kaiser Permanente CEO Gregory Adams — companies that are headquartered in Oakland.

How much will the new mayor influence the city’s next budget?

The candidates hardly acknowledge this, but there’s only one likely answer: probably not a whole lot. This could lighten some of the urgency of the election as it relates to the $140 million budget deficit facing Oakland next year.

Councilmember Kevin Jenkins, who is serving as interim mayor, is working on a spending proposal for the city’s next two-year budget cycle, which he said in an interview is now “95% complete.”

The mayor typically proposes the budget sometime in May so the council can amend and approve the finished plan before the next fiscal year begins in July.

Dupuis, the county’s top election official, would have up to 30 days after April 15 to sign off on election results.

In an interview, though, he said the process could wrap much earlier if all three ballot outcomes are easy to determine and if Oakland City Clerk Asha Reed requests an earlier certification.

Then, the City Council would be able to approve the election results at its next regular meeting, which could take a couple extra weeks, because the council can’t schedule a special session. And only after that could a new mayor be sworn in.

Given that Lee and Taylor both advocate for longer-term financial analysis — both calling for city audits, and Taylor even proposing an extensive “zero-based budgeting” process — it’s likelier that their visions won’t fully take shape until next year’s mid-cycle adjustments. By then, Oakland would be months away from another mayoral election.

Taylor insisted in an interview that he would still propose amendments, at least, to Jenkins’ plan after taking office. Jenkins, for his part, said he is open to a discussion.

Will ranked-choice voting make any difference in the election outcome?

Lee and Taylor are running in a 10-candidate field that includes ex-Thao staffer Renia Webb, former Olympic skier Elizabeth Swaney, Bay Area Council staffer Suz Robinson, paralegal Tyron Jordan and four perennial candidates.

Public exposure and well-heeled financial backers have set Lee and Taylor far apart from the pack. They went head to head in a high-profile debate last month and their supporters have launched negative advertising campaigns against each other.

Still, anyone who lived through the last Oakland mayoral election in 2022 remembers that the city’s ranked-choice voting system can shape the outcome.

Under the city’s version of the format, a voter can rank up to five choices. If no candidate secures over 50% of votes, then the last-place candidate is eliminated and their votes are transferred respectively to whomever voters listed as their next second choice.

The process continues, round by round, until someone wins a majority.

Thao defeated Taylor in 2022 despite having fewer first-place votes, largely because of vote transfers from fourth-place finisher Allyssa Victory. In the end, Thao beat Taylor by 677 votes.

Besides Taylor and Lee, who have raised hundreds of thousands, no other candidate has raised over $10,000 in contributions or run a robust campaign. Lee and Taylor pair have not forged alliances with other candidates, as is typical in ranked-choice races.

But even a handful of vote transfers could make a difference if the race is tight.