Oakland – The former member of the Municipal Council Loren Taylor took a very thin advance in the first results during the special elections of Oakland at the town hall against the former democratic representative Barbara Lee in a race caused by a series of recent scandals which led to the reminder of the mayor of the city in November.
The race to lead the city in northern California remained too close to call late Tuesday evening. But Taylor’s strong projection is the last touch of the plot in a race that many expected Lee, a progressive icon that has spent almost 30 years representing the East Bay in the Congress, to easily win after having declared his candidacy in January.
Oakland, a city of 436,000 people with around 250,000 registered voters, uses elections with classification choice, which allows voters to select several candidates in order of preference. This could take several days before the end results were recorded and a winner was declared, but the supporters of Taylor were already celebrating the first results at a campaign party in downtown Oakland.
At the bottom of rue de la Fête de Taylor, with the still very young night, hundreds of Lee supporters have remained optimistic while dancing in a live group at the ceremony, a city center in the city center. Green and golden balloons, the official colors of Oakland, have decorated the room, while dozens of people have formed a long line to obtain a plate of soul food.
Lee, wearing a dark green suit with a gold shirt, also took a resilient tone during a speech during the party, where she spent more time thanking the supporters of the campaign that she spoke of results.
“We all know it will be a long week,” she said. “But we are doing very well.”
The special election was triggered by the escape of mayor Sheng Thao, which the voters recalled his functions in November in the deep frustrations of crime, homelessness and general feeling that Oakland was in crisis.
Thao, a progressive elected in 2022, was strongly criticized for having failed to more aggressively approach the so-called flights and theft of cars or to dismantle the cities of the city’s sprawling tents. She was also confronted with accusations of the upset of the city’s finance, contributing to a challenge to the disastrous budget this exercise which will almost certainly require reductions in government departments.
The efforts to remember Thao of the Office were already underway when, in June, FBI agents made a descent as part of an alleged tropcalaurement program involving Thao’s boyfriend and a father-and-and-end team manages the company that provides Oakland recycling services. This probe has energized the recall, which easily passed with more than 60% of the votes. Thao, his boyfriend Andre Jones, and Andy and David Duong California Waste Solutions were charged on Federal corruption fees in January. The four defendants pleaded not guilty.
The eviction of Thao, as well as concerns about crime and the city’s financial crisis, fueled the deep resentment of voters in the face of the incompetence perceived by government leaders, said that Dan Lindheim, a former director of the city of Oakland who now teaches the Goldman School of Public of Policy of the UC Berkeley.
“There was a perception that things were out of control, associated with this financial crisis,” said Lindheim, who approved Lee.
The election created an unexpected career opportunity for Lee, who left Washington in January after losing his candidacy for the Senate during last year primary to his Democratic colleague Adam Schiff, who won the headquarters in November. With Oakland in the sudden need for a new mayor, a large coalition of business groups, labor organizations and elected leaders spent last fall calling Lee, 78, running in the special elections and saving their city from the collapse.
Since the announcement of his campaign in January, Lee has run on a message of unity as a veteran politician with decades of experience by forging links between all interest groups. She praised the hundreds of millions of dollars which she brought back to the East Bay during her stay at the Congress, where she pleaded for anti-war policies and promoted legislation that targeted racism, sexism, poverty and exploitation of labor. These values come from its roots as a militant of Black Panther and her training in education at Mills College and UC Berkeley.
She promised on the campaign track to “improve everyone’s life” in Oakland, while producing the fight against crime and encouraging the 5,400 homeless estimated in Oakland in the shelter and housing. She is committed to hiring more police, limiting public spending and increasing transparency in the decisions taken at the Town Hall.
Taylor and Lee were only two candidates in a field crowded with 10 people, although a person abandoned the race in February to campaign for Lee. But the race was largely considered a competition between Lee and Taylor and their competing visions for Oakland.
Taylor has actually reduced Lee’s advantage in recent weeks with an aggressive campaign strategy that was largely based on the transformation of her forces against her.
He has often described his hometown as “broken” and desperately needed a managing director with the field experience at the Town Hall who could make difficult decisions without fear of long -standing political supporters. And at 47, Taylor called on voters disillusioned by career politicians who were looking for someone younger to direct their city in a new direction.
“People want ideological declarations and positions of their representatives to the national government,” said Keally McBride, resident of Oakland and professor of politics at the University of San Francisco. “But when it comes to local government, they just want things to work.”
Taylor has received a financial boost from technology and business leaders who have channeled tens of thousands of dollars to elect it through independent expenditure committees that support his candidacy.
Taylor represented East Oakland games for four years at the municipal council before losing narrowly against Thao in the mayor elections in 2022. In this race, Taylor held up for several days before a wave of voting bulletins by mail revealed the vote in favor of Thao.
California Daily Newspapers
