Former Democrat Rep. Barbara Lee surged to lead in the race to become Oakland’s next mayor, according to the vote results released Friday evening.
The latest tally showed Lee was moving ahead of former city councillor Lauren Taylor, her main challenger in the race. Her lead was well led by the San Francisco Chronicle, which declared Lee “was elected Oakland’s next mayor.”
Auckland, a city of 436,000 people, uses elections of choice, allowing voters to select multiple candidates by prioritization. This method complicates vote counts, and it could be weeks before Alameda County Election officials announce the final tally for this week’s special election.
Lee’s campaign has curbed declaring victory on Friday evening, but campaign officials have issued a statement calling the latest results “encouragement.” Taylor, who represented East Oakland for four years on the city council, could not be reached for comment.
If the results were obtained, Lee, 78, has expelled the progressive Mayor Shentao, who was elected in 2022, having been a progressive icon representing the Council’s Auckland and surrounding area for nearly 30 years. Thao was accused of beating the city’s finances, contributing to a budget shortage that almost certainly requires drastic cuts across the government sector.
Efforts to inaugurate Thao were already underway when FBI agents stormed her home in June as part of an investigation into a corruption scheme that included Thao’s boyfriend and a father’s team that runs a company that provides recycling services in Auckland. The probe activates recalls and easily passed with over 60% of votes. Thao, her boyfriend, Andre Jones, and Andy and David Duong of California Waste Solutions were indicted in January. All four pleaded not guilty.
“I decided to run for mayor knowing that Auckland is a deeply divided city, and then I ran to unite our community,” Lee said in a statement Friday.
The election created an unexpected career opportunity for Lee, who left Washington in January at the Primary last year.
As Auckland suddenly needs a new mayor, a wide coalition of business groups, labor organizations and elected leaders called Lee last fall, running in the April 15 special election, spending it to save the city from collapse.
The nine ultimately competed in the race, but Taylor, a business management consultant who is Lee’s third-year student. He portrayed the city as “broken,” but desperately portrayed a CEO with ground experience at city hall who could make tough decisions without fear of disappointing longtime political supporters.
Taylor received a financial boost from leaking tens of thousands of dollars to an independent spending committee that supports his candidacy.
Lee was on the record as a veteran politician with decades of experience building connections between diverse interest groups. She touted the hundreds of millions of dollars she brought back to East Bay during her time in Congress, where she advocated anti-war policies and promoted laws targeting racism, sexism, poverty and labour exploitation. These values arise from her roots as a Black Panther activist and as educational training at Mills College and University of California Berkeley.
She pledged to “make everyone’s lives better” in Auckland, fighting crime and encouraging an estimated 5,400 homeless people in Auckland to shelters and housing. She has pledged to hire more police officers, curb government spending and increase transparency into decisions at city hall.
