Thao Concedes as Recalls Appear Inevitable: With Potential 1/3 of Vote Counted, Recall–Associated Candidates Continue Performing Poorly

On Friday night after an additional count of about 16K votes by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters [ALCO ROV] showed little movement in the Recall numbers, Mayor Sheng Thao conceded the race in a social media post posted on Twitter. Thao thanked the public for electing her and promised a “smooth transition” to the interim mayor’s role. The outcome arrives as Oakland finishes it's 6th* week without a homicide, which could possibly be a first for any mayor in Oakland in decades.

Potential 2/3 of Votes Left to be Counted

With 76% voter turnout during the last two presidential elections—and Registrar Tim Dupuis predicting 80% turnout—it’s unknown how many votes remain to be processed, but there may ultimately be 180 to 200K turnout in Oakland's November, 2024 election. The Registrar now says that it has received 120K city votes as of Friday, and has only counted 65K of those by Friday.

The State of California considers votes valid if postmarked on election day, and requires a seven day period to receive mail-in ballots before the count can begin to be certified. But it's unlikely the vote count in both recalls will turn around significantly, although Thao’s recall race could narrow. Historically, later votes trend toward more left-leaning. Though Thao received a minor positive increase in votes, Price's large vote imbalance grew.

Recall-Associated Candidates Generally Performing Poorly

Despite the recall’s positive results, candidates linked to it by funding and by the organizations much of the funders were aligned with, Empower Oakland [EO] and Foundational Oakland Unites [FOU], continue to experience an almost reverse outcome. With obvious connections to unlimited funding, influence in local corporate media, and success in the recalls, it's unclear what's behind the surprising results. FOU has come under scrutiny due to its role in hiding the funding of Dreyfuss until a majority of recall signatures had been gathered. FOU also made headlines again when its slate mailer appeared to come out against same sex marriage by urging no on Prop 3, which would remove constitutional language against it in the California Charter. The organization added a disclaimer to its website, claiming the endorsement was an error. But just days later, its volunteers were handing out the mailer at events with no changes or comment.

Empower Oakland is a relatively new organization that came into being suddenly this year, under the persona of Loren Taylor. The organization appears to have bypassed organizing with direct connections to corporate media news broadcasts. Two of the funding facilitators for the Price and Thao recalls are on its board.

Deep Pocketed Support No Help to Raphael Who Ferried Dreyfuss’ Hidden Cash for Signature Gathering

Most noteworthy, Len Raphael, who was the Treasurer for Foundational Oakland Unites, the funding arm that served as the exclusive pump for the recall and provided almost all of its funding, is running a ragged D1 race against Zac Ungar that looked even worse by Friday night.

Raphael received tens of thousands of dollars in help from a committee run by Chris Moore— it was almost the entirety of the spending for Rapahel, who raised a negligible amount himself. Moore was a member of the Empower Oakland “endorsement committee” and took over the FOU Treasurer role shortly after Raphael began running for D1. Moore then guided funding from FOU to another committee he runs to benefit Raphael and D7 candidate Ken Houston. But despite having wealthy support saturating the media landscape on his behalf, Raphael has little more than 17% of the vote as of press time in the ROV projection for the race: Unger is winning with about 83% of the vote. With a high percentage of D1’s votes already in—potentially 3/4 according to the Registrar with turnout projections of 70 to 80%—Unger is certain to win.

Empower Oakland,“Key Oakland Races”, FOU Slate, Failing

Empower Oakland nominally backed Unger in D1, but a later email from the organization's founder and shadow director, Loren Taylor, advocated Raphael instead. Raphael posted comments to social media that belie the original EO endorsement as a smokescreen, rather than a real endorsement. FOU, the funding tool run by EO endorsement committee member Moore also endorsed Raphael in a mailer sent to Oakland voters a week or so before the election. D1 was not among EO’s self-proclaimed “key races”, but all of those Oakland candidates are likewise failing by large margins.

Recall's Public Face, Harbin-Forte, Failing in City Attorney Contest by Wide Margin

Brenda Harbin-Forte, who Raphael called his “boss” on social media and was the public face of the recall, is also struggling in the city wide contest for City Attorney, despite more than a quarter million or more spent on her behalf by a consortium of the OPD union, developer, finance and coal interests. She trails Assistant City Attorney Ryan Richardson in early returns by nearly 14 points, a lead that grew by nearly two points in the new dump. In both races, the theory that later returns run leftward means the leads could grow.

FOU and EO Favorite, Logan, Failing as Like-Minded Slate Candidate's Votes Go to Leader Fife

In another EO “key race” aligned with the recall to unseat D3 City Council representative Carroll Fife, Warren Logan is performing poorly. Logan, who received over half a million dollars in support from recall-linked spending, is also losing in the first RCV projections. While it's still too early to predict with certainty, the RCV projections currently have Fife beating Logan by 13 points, about the same distance as her lead over him in a straight match up with all of the candidates before applying RCV. This means that almost all of the other candidates' votes break for her often enough to counter any advantage Logan would have gotten from them, a trend that seems likely to continue. This is especially noteworthy with candidate Michelle Hailey, who is a fellow traveler with Chris Moore’s EBRHA landlord advocacy group and a constant critic of Fife’s. Hailey likely entered the race with minimal chances of winning but the expectation her votes would strengthen Logan’s chances. She was also supported in FOU’s mailer as third ranked choice. Logan got less than half of Hailey’s votes—but Fife got a third of them—in the latest count. The outcome reflects Fife's comments during a candidate forum that voters who did not want to support her should support a "candidate of character" after which she listed all of the other candidates except Logan.

Unknown Newcomer Brown Prevailing Over "Popular" Former Police Chief Armstrong

The RCV math on early returns also show Leronne Armstrong losing to Rowena Brown by almost ten points—again that could shift. Brown started the straight vote before RCV is applied tied with Armstrong, but in the latest update, she's pulled away by a point and the RCV math hasn't gotten better for Armstrong either. It’s noteworthy that in the present RCV projection, Brown gets nearly double the number of Charlene Wang’s votes than Armstrong received, despite Empower Oakland having run her as a slate for Armstrong.

Brown is a relative newcomer to public life after a stint as an organizer and Legislative District Director for Mia Bonta. A Google news search shows she was not the subject of any news reports before declaring her candidacy in the Spring. Brown's performance belies the claim that Armstrong was a popular public figure when he was fired from his position as Police Chief as several internal affairs scandals he oversaw broke.

Sure-Bet Gallo and Houston Are the Only FOU/EO Contenders

Noel Gallo and Ken Houston are the only clear frontrunners from the EO and FOU slates. But gallo was always the likely winner of D5. In D7 Ken Houston looks likely to beat Iris Merriouns, which would be the only independent victory for the FOU slate. Merriouns was co-endorsed by EO, in a race in which perennial candidate Marcie Hodge has barely campaigned and outsider candidate Merika Goolsby raised no funds and had no third party support.

*This article initially claimed an 8 week pause in homicides. But a review of East Bay Times published articles about homicides since September indicates the last time a homicide was committed was about 6 weeks ago. The East Bay Times has for years kept a running total of homicides based on its own reporting that is considered an accurate parallel to the OPD's statistics.