Former Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) is neck and neck with her main rival in the Oakland special mayoral election, with the race too close to call.
The initial tally of the results of the ranked-choice election shows former City Council member Loren Taylor (D) leading with 48.2 percent of the vote, just more than 1,000 votes ahead of Lee, who has 45.7 percent. The eight other candidates in the race all received less than 2 percent.
The counting could continue for days as mail-in ballots need to be counted, and then subsequent rounds can happen for one candidate to get to a majority of the vote.
Alameda County reported as of Wednesday that 42,000 unprocessed ballots remain to count, which is more than enough for either Taylor or Lee to prevail. Additional rounds of counting will only be necessary if neither has a majority in the initial tally once all votes are counted.
The next set of counted ballots are expected to be revealed on Friday.
“Your voice matters,” Lee said in a post on the social platform X. “There are still many votes left to count—we’ll keep you updated as results come in.”
The election to replace former Mayor Sheng Thao (D), who was removed from office in a recall election in November, was initially expected to be an easy win for Lee.
The former longtime House member has high name recognition as she represented Oakland for decades as a leading progressive voice. But the race became increasingly competitive as the election approached and turned into a proxy battle between the progressive and a moderate in Taylor, who was the runner-up in the 2022 election.
Taylor has positioned himself as an outsider who will bring real change to the city. He campaigned on a more moderate platform of increasing the number of officers in Oakland’s police force and eliminating taxes for businesses with less than $1.5 million in revenue.
Lee scored numerous big-name endorsements, including from interim Mayor Kevin Jenkins (D), former California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) and multiple former Oakland mayors.
But Taylor also gained backing from influential figures, like San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan (D) and former City Council President Pat Kernighan, as well as the editorial board of the San Francisco Chronicle.
The closeness of the race means the ranked-choice system could come into play with the voters who chose candidates other than Taylor and Lee being the deciding factor.
After all the initial votes are counted, each candidate with the fewest votes will be eliminated, and their votes will be redistributed according to their voters’ second preferences. This process will continue until one candidate has a majority of the vote.
Supporters of Taylor celebrated the initial count of the votes showing him slightly ahead at his election night headquarters.
Lee reportedly told her supporters “we all know this is going to be a long week” but her campaign is doing “very well.”
Thao, the first Hmong American woman to be elected mayor of a major U.S. city, was recalled two years into her term following criticism on a few different fronts.
Crime seemed to be dropping in the city in 2024, but the numbers were still higher than most other major cities and came after a significant increase the prior year. She also faced backlash over her relationship with the police union and an FBI raid of her home in June.
She was eventually indicted in January on charges of bribery, conspiracy and mail and wire fraud. She has pleaded not guilty and denies the allegations.
More than 60 percent voted in favor of her removal in November, the first time in the city’s history that the mayor had been recalled.
— Updated April 17 at 9:45 a.m. EDT