What an Oakland poll reveals a week before the election

Also: CHP continues crackdown, more budget woes, Roots in the playoffs

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Story of the week

Warren Logan running for Oakland City Council to represent District 3 (Downtown and West Oakland)

A new poll released last week shed light on some of Oakland’s key races with less than 2 weeks to the election. The poll was conducted by the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce the week prior.

Tight race: Oakland City Council will come down to the wire, especially in District 3, which covers Downtown and West Oakland — areas that have been particularly hit by crime, homelessness, and slowing economic activity.

• The two leading candidates — incumbent Carroll Fife and challenger Warren Logan — are in a statistical tie, according to the poll. Fife is widely seen as the progressive candidate and Logan as the commonsense pragmatist.

• With five candidates running, the race may come down to a ranked-choice run-off.

Empower’s choice: With so much at stake in Downtown and West Oakland, as well as on city council with a majority of seats on the ballot, D3 is a critical piece in Oakland’s return to commonsense policies.

• Empower Oakland endorsed Warren Logan for the D3 council seat. He’s a housing and public transportation wonk, with a deep understanding of how city government works as well as the urgency of Oakland’s current crisis.

• On public safety, Logan says he never would have supported the catastrophic policies that Fife has, such as defunding police, getting rid of ShotSpotter, and further decimating the police force down to 600 officers.

RCV odds: Further evidence that Carroll Fife is far apart from others in the D3 race is seen in the poll’s RCV simulation. While Fife is statistically tied for first place votes with Logan, she gets less than 5% of the second and third place votes in the poll.

• This could leave more second, third, fourth (and so on) place votes going to Logan than Fife, purely on ideological differences that voters in Downtown and West Oakland more closely align with.

Other key races include city council’s at-large seat, with former OPD chief LeRonne Armstrong slightly ahead of progressive candidate Rowena Brown. In the Alameda County Supervisor race, John Bauters is also polling slightly ahead of current city council president Nikki Bas.

• Also hoping to lead D3’s turnaround is Dwayne Aikens, bringing a rational approach to OUSD school board.

• Casey Farmer is another to watch, as she’s the only Oakland resident running in the race for East Bay Regional Parks. Farmer recently wrote about her vision for the future of Bay Area parks.

Haven’t voted yet? Read more about these key races in our voter guide, which also includes video interviews and written questionnaires with the candidates themselves.

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📢 We’re in the homestretch — it’s not too late to volunteer!

Love connecting with neighbors? We’re looking for enthusiastic folks to canvass and attend events in the final week before the election. Every vote counts!

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In other news…

• CHP continued their blitz operations last weekend, targeting sideshows that led to 22 arrests and 36 seized vehicles. Since February, the CHP’s ongoing surge operation in Oakland has resulted in 1,125 arrests, and the seizure of 2,213 stolen vehicles and 110 illegal guns. (NBC)

• At Oakland's finance committee meeting last week, city staff acknowledged that $63M in budget cuts are already underway — which includes about $45M in cuts to police and fire. (ABC)

• Oakland Fire Chief Damon Covington had harsh words for city council about their proposed budget cuts. He said if the proposed cuts would have been in place, homes would definitely have been lost in the Keller Fire last week. (CBS)

• Oakland’s budget problems have no end in sight. A report from the city’s finance director warned Oaklanders of a $240M structural deficit from 2025 to 2027. Inevitably, balancing this shortfall will require cuts to Oakland’s already depleted public safety services. (Oaklandside)

  • Notably, there is no relief from Mayor Thao’s plan to sell the Coliseum, as those proceeds, if the deal goes through, are projected to be received by the end of this fiscal year. 

• The endorsements to recall District Attorney Pamela Price keep piling up. This week, former DA Nancy O’Malley and the SF Chronicle threw their support behind the recall. This adds to the long list of recall supporters, including all 14 police unions in her county and U.S. Congressman Eric Swalwell who represents most of eastern Alameda County.

• Mayor Thao’s recall is also gaining traction, with 64% of respondents in favor of the recall. This includes a majority supporting the recall across nearly every demographic, race/ethnicity, geographic area, and political leaning. 

  • Interestingly, this shows not much has changed since summer, when an earlier poll showed Thao was in trouble, leading voters to wonder whether Thao’s recent public safety and city cleanup campaigns are too little too late.

• San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan makes the economic case for Prop 36, which would increase punishments for repeat thefts and drug offenses. (SF Standard)

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⚽️ Oakland Proud

In the final week of the regular season, the Oakland Roots secured a playoff spot with a win against Las Vegas. This means the Roots will make the playoffs for the third time in four seasons. This week, the team also announced ticket pricing for next season, which they’ll play at Oakland Coliseum.

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✅ Get ready to vote!

• Update your voter registration and mailing address

• Check your Oakland council district number

• Check your County supervisor district number

• View Empower Oakland’s 2024 voter guide

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