New Oakland leader from ‘the margins’
Nail-biter vote count: Ranked-choice tally took nearly 2 weeks
Progressive City Council Member Sheng Thao was elected Oakland’s mayor on Monday, edging out moderate City Council Member Loren Taylor by 682 votes in a nail-biting rankedchoice voting race that stretched out for nearly two weeks.
Thao secured 50.3% of the 113,636 votes and Taylor took 49.7%, according to the final drop from the Alameda County Registrar of Voters. Thao’s election to replace Mayor Libby Schaaf caps a ballot-counting process that showed Taylor in the lead until Friday, when Thao jumped ahead.
She will be sworn in on Jan. 2, the mayor’s office said.
Thao said in a statement late Monday she’s “incredibly honored by the trust the voters have placed in me.”
“I’m very excited to get to work as Mayor in January, but I’m also very humbled to be here,” she said. “15 years ago, I was living in my car with my baby. I’ve been through a lot to get to this moment, and have had so many people lift me up in order to get here.”
She also thanked Taylor and said she hopes to speak with him over the next few days “to find ways to work together for the good of our city.” She noted this was a close election and said she hopes to earn the trust of voters who did not choose her.
“This is the closest mayor’s race in modern Oakland history,” said Jim Ross, a political consultant who supported Thao, but didn’t work on her campaign.
Taylor conceded the race on Tuesday morning, saying his efforts weren’t enough to “overcome the significant headwinds we faced,” with nearly $1 million raised in independent expenditures in support of Thao.
“Know that my commitment to the town, to you, to all Oaklanders, it will never waver,” he said emotionally to a gathering of supporters at Liberation Park in East Oakland. “We are not finished yet.”
Monday’s release was the final update until the registrar certifies the election next month.
Oakland uses ranked-choice voting, which means if a candidate receives a majority of firstchoice votes, that candidate wins. If not, the last-place candidate is eliminated, and voters who selected that candidate have their votes counted for their next choice — a cycle that repeats until a candidate gets a majority.
Taylor had received nearly 1,600 more first-choice votes than Thao — 33.07% to her 31.79%.
On Tuesday, Taylor criticized the city’s voting process, which he said needs to be retooled.
“Ranked choice voting as it is isn’t working,” he said. “When 20,000 ballots are exhausted before you get to voting on the mayor of this city, that’s not the intention or even the promise of ranked choice.”
Thao’s election is a “real break from the Libby Schaaf years” and will change the direction of the city that has been led by Schaaf for the past eight years, Ross said. Schaaf is a moderate and Thao is a progressive politician who promised voters she would be different than her predecessor.
Schaaf, who had endorsed Taylor to take over her job, tweeted her congratulations to Thao on Tuesday and said she would ensure a “seamless transition” as Thao takes over.
“Now that the campaign is over, it is my greatest hope that residents and our newly elected council members will unify for the good of Oakland and work together toward our shared goal of a bright future for all residents,” Schaaf said.
As Thao prepares to take office, she’ll have to contend with a voter base that wants to see results now.
“Voters are really split on the direction of the city,” Ross said, noting that half of the people casting ballots voted for Thao’s opponents.
The new mayor’s “challenge going forward is, ‘How do you deliver for people?’ That is what people in Oakland want — they want homelessness dealt with, they want the streets cleaned, they want crime to be addressed,” Ross said. “They want to see real performance.”
Thao, 37, who secured support from major labor unions in Oakland, a powerful force that raised almost $1 million for her, and from the Alameda County Democratic Party, will have to grapple with the city’s increasing homeless population, rise in violent crime and economic uncertainty.
The Oakland Chamber of Commerce released a poll last month showing that 64% of respondents felt the city was headed in the wrong direction, that 42% of respondents said Schaaf was doing a poor job and 24% said she was doing a fair job.
Thao said in her statement that on day one, she will implement a public safety plan that doubles down on “the violence prevention programs that we know reduce violent crime, addressing root causes of crime by working to create more jobs and educational opportunities, filling vacancies in our police department with experienced and diverse officers, providing real support for victims, and redoubling our efforts to get guns off our streets.”
She said she will also implement an “aggressive housing policy that protects renters, fights displacement, and treats our unhoused with the dignity they deserve.” Thao also promised to champion environmental policies, support small businesses and build a “more responsive city government, one that returns our calls in a timely manner and focuses like a laser on keeping our streets clean, safe, and vibrant.”
Thao’s win is a major victory for labor unions and shows that Oakland is a union town, Ross said, adding that the other council members who were elected — Nikki Fortunato Bas, who was re-elected; Kevin Jenkins, elected to replace Taylor; and Janani Ramachandran, elected to replace Thao — were also laborsupported candidates.
As a mayoral candidate, Thao touted her ability to bring people together to make progress. That’s why Dick Spees, a former council member who represented the same district that Thao did, said he endorsed her.
“She was an incredible worker,” Spees said. “She knew how to get things done and she worked really collaboratively with everybody. She was able to pull people together in a way that no one else in Oakland could do.”
Bas said Thao was instrumental in reaching a deal with businesses, labor unions and other stakeholders to put one progressive business tax on the ballot, which voters passed.
Bas said she hopes the new city administration will focus on filling city vacancies — which Thao promised to do during her campaign.
“One of the things that stands out to me is Sheng’s commitment to working families, and families and children in general,” Bas said. “She has experienced such hardship coming from a refugee family. I have seen her as a mom just fiercely protect her son.”
Born and raised in Stockton, Thao is the daughter of refugees who fled Laos during a genocide against the Hmong people. The seventh of 10 children, Thao left home at 17 and later fled an abusive relationship while pregnant with her son. During that time, she experienced homelessness and was forced to couch-surf and sometimes live in her car. Eventually, she graduated from UC Berkeley and became a staffer for Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan before winning a City Council seat in 2018.