Oakland’s West and flatlands neighborhoods overcame the power of big-money in the city’s Mayoral race as former Congresswoman Barbara Lee defeated former Oakland City Councilman Loren Taylor in the April 15th special election to appoint a mayor to finish the remainder of Sheng Thao's term, a definitive update of counted votes confirms.

Taylor was  backed by a web of Astroturf groups linked to wealthy individuals and corporations. The Alameda County Registrar's precinct map shows that Lee carried most of the flatlands and low foothill areas, many of which are still predominantly Black, Brown, working class and working poor. Taylor did well in upper hills areas synonymous in Oakland for generations with wealth, whiteness and conservative viewpoints.

Among those who bankrolled Taylor’s campaign were Crypto Magnate and Trump donor Chris Larsen ($100k), Venture Capitalist and San Francisco conservative-backer Garry Tan ($10k) who has previously called for political violence, and Max Hodak ($70k), a biotech entrepreneur who co-founded Neuralink with Elon Musk, a company with a long history of animal abuse allegations. Much of the money that made its way to Taylor’s campaign was donated through independent expenditure committees.

In the current count of about 94,000 votes, Lee leads Taylor by around 5,000 votes. Lee holds slightly more than 50% of the total votes, which means that Ranked Choice Voting [RCV] tallies won't be necessary if her lead holds there over the next update Friday 4/25. Although election-day postmarked ballots have five days by state law to arrive at the registrar to be considered valid, a majority have likely already arrived, and all drop box and in-person votes have been counted. The current turnout is about 36% — that's low for a regular election, but typical for a special local election with no state or national races.

Though the loser by a large margin of over five percentage points, Loren Taylor appeared to be a more likely winner after an initial vote tranche consisting of about 44,000 ballots on Tuesday night around 8pm. In that first tranche, Taylor led by 4 percentage points. About an hour later reality began to intrude into the scene when the next tranche shrank the gap considerably to a little over 2%. Lee’s margin in the second tranche of voters was an impressive 15% out of the 42,000. That same pattern was replicated closely in the third tranche released Friday evening, with Lee getting 54.7% of the additional 45,000 votes and Taylor getting only 41.5%. The registrar must review ballots before election results are finalized.

In a statement this morning acknowledging the sense of finality to this count, Taylor conceded the race to Lee.

In a breakdown of returned ballots to date, hills-heavy areas of District 4 and 1 are overwhelmingly represented in returned votes. Those districts were far closer to typical regular election turnouts, with 44.8% and 51.6% of registered voters casting votes respectively. East Oakland’s District 5, which includes Fruitvale and the lower Dimond District, had the lowest turnout so far, with 24% of registered voters voting—only 6,000 voters. The aggregate votes of the three East Oakland districts represent a little over half of the turnout of D1 and D4 combined. District 3, representing neighborhoods in West Oakland and downtown that have borne the brunt of Oakland's gentrification over the past two decades, also had relatively low voter turnout.

As in the last two citywide [and countywide] elections, voters who favor progressive-branded politics again seemed to prefer to mail or deposit their ballots late in the election period, while voters who prefer right-wing messaging appeared to vote early. That first vote drop, consisting entirely of conservative-heavy early ballots on Tuesday gave Taylor the illusory appearance of performing far better than he actually has. Given the character of the later vote tranches, Lee's lead could actually grow in the likely last count which won't be released until Friday the 25th, according to the Registrar.

In this election, the City Council can certify the election results in a special meeting called with three-day notice. The registrar has 30 days by law to certify the vote, but is likely to do so much earlier, given the relatively small vote count. Lee could be seated within several weeks, but it's unlikely they will be in their seats until sometime in May.