A mayoral race that was supposed to be an easy win for former Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee has turned into a close contest with a week left to go before Oakland, California, voters head to the polls.
Lee, a well-known progressive politician who was against the recall of former Mayor Sheng Thao, has been forced to defend her positions by her more centrist opponent Loren Taylor, who has tapped into voter frustration.
“We have a lot of things that need to be fixed and need to be fixed immediately,” he said at a recent debate.
Taylor, who represented portions of East Oakland on the City Council, narrowly lost the 2022 bid for mayor. He is widely seen as the only challenger to Lee in the race, though there are nine candidates.
Taylor has said he wants to fix the city while Lee said she wants to unify it.
Lee, 78, left Washington in January after losing her bid for the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s seat. Then-Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) won the crowded jungle primary and general election.
The loss ended Lee’s nearly three-decade career in Congress, where her fight for civil rights made her a hometown hero. But when she got back to Oakland, the city was in shambles.
In the decade before the pandemic, Oakland, with its cheaper rents and nightlife, had become an edgy and affordable alternative to nearby San Francisco. But after COVID-19, the city struggled to get back on its feet and has since become the poster child for corruption and mismanagement. Violent crime and homelessness have surged, and there has been a mass exodus of businesses and sports teams.
The California city also faces an $89 million budget deficit that has already led to layoffs and other cost-cutting measures. It is so bad that Oakland has been forced to scale back public safety measures and has approved cuts within its arts, culture, police, and fire sectors.
Lee came out of retirement to run for mayor after a self-described group of “business, labor, community, government, and faith leaders who rarely agree on things” released an open letter to her in late December 2024. They claimed that “extraordinary times” brought them together and implored her to keep the city afloat.
She accepted and was widely seen as the clear favorite, something that has become less certain in recent days.
“Things have gotten worse, not better, in Oakland over the last many years, and whenever that dynamic occurs, it’s a change election,” John Whitehurst, a political consultant and veteran of Oakland politics, told Politico. “The heart of the progressive movement beats in [Lee]. Everyone thought she’d be a bench-clearer. Not the case — she’s been successfully tagged with the failures of the past.”
Taylor has also tried to tie Lee and her backers to Thao, claiming that Lee had been “recruited by some of those backers that recruited Sheng Thao to run.”
Thao, who had been on the job for two years, was recalled in 2024 by angry voters and has since been federally indicted on bribery, corruption, and fraud charges. She became the nation’s first mayor of a major city to be ousted in over a decade.
Taylor’s campaign has been funded by some of the same people who put money into Thao’s recall. He has also taken shots at Lee’s age, arguing that they come from two different eras and that he is the one who can make tough decisions.
“I think the question that needs to be asked is, ‘All right, do we want a 78-year-old career politician who has not shown a history of making the hard, difficult decisions?’” he said. “Or do we want a 47-year-old political outsider who has been on the ground, working within City Hall, across multiple stakeholder groups, demonstrating the ability to solve these difficult problems, and is committed to being here beyond just 20 months?”
Campaign finance reports show Taylor has outraised Lee and that the PACs supporting him have more or less kept up with those supporting Lee.
Taylor also has support from the tech industry.
Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan announced Monday that he had contributed $10,000 to a pro-Taylor independent expenditure committee that has already spent $277,000 on canvassing and mailers.
“The SF Bay Area needs new leadership to undo the corruption and rot of disgraced mayor Sheng Thao and Barbara Lee is just more of the same,” he posted on X.
The same committee also received $70,000 from Max Hodak, a former Neuralink executive who runs an Alameda-based medical technology company. San Francisco crypto billionaire Chris Larsen gave $100,000 to Empower Oakland, the group formed by Taylor that is now led by Gagan Biyani, a tech education entrepreneur.
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Lee has gotten support from labor allies that have given her PAC nearly $400,000.
The area’s two leading newspapers were split on which candidate to endorse. The East Bay Times went with Lee, claiming she has the “political clout needed to unify the city’s fractured leadership.” The San Francisco Chronicle broke for Taylor, who the editorial board argued has “firm but reasonable ideas for balancing Oakland’s budget.”