Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao on Cusp Of Recall

An update vote total on Thursday afternoon showed that Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao is close to being recalled, with the victory threshold closer and people voting for her to be recalled by nearly 2 to 1.

Since being elected as Mayor in the closest Mayoral election in city history in 2022, violent crimes have skyrocketed in Oakland. In 2023,  burglaries shot up by 23%, with vehicle thefts jumping up by 45% and robberies up 38%. The murder rate also remained high, staying above 100 in a single year for yet another year in a row. With many believing that Thao has not been addressing crime and public safety concerns, and other issues coming up such as continued homeless issues,  the firing of the police chief LeRonne Armstrong, and Thao’s failure in trying to keep the Oakland Athletics from relocating to Las Vegas, residents began calling for her recall last year.

The petition grew this year, and earlier this summer, Thao was slammed with multiple political blows. In mid-June, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters announced that enough signatures have been approved to officially put the recall vote against Mayor Sheng Thao on the ballot, with Thao becoming the first Mayor in Oakland history to ever face a recall election. An FBI raid on her home, and her subsequent outburst, fueled more voters to sign the petition.

By August, calls for her to resign grew, while polls showed that more and more in Oakland supported her recall. A poll that came out showed that she had a 69% disapproval rating, with 56% of Oakland voters supporting her recall. In the next few months, support for her recall remained high. All the while, Thao has fought tooth and nail against the recall, saying in response to the recall effort “I have the best job in the world. That’s because every day I have a chance to fight for a safer, more affordable, and more prosperous Oakland. I ask all Oaklanders to help me achieve that vision with hope and collaboration and push aside fear and division. Let’s bring our community together to fight for the City we love.”

Only days before the election, Thao’s efforts to stave off the recall  eroded further, with former Mayor Libby Schaaf coming out against her and Athletics fans organizing once again to get her out. On election night, only a fraction of the amount of votes in Oakland were counted, but they showed that the recall was winning by over a 60% margin. This led to Thursday, where the latest results showed that Thao was even closer to reaching the threshold point of losing. As of Thursday, the race is at 31,838 yes votes and 17,002 no votes. This has given it the distinction of being likely to pass despite only around 40% of the vote total in. Alameda County DA Pamela Price has similar figures in her own recall.

Thao closer to being recalled

Oakland United to Recall Sheng Thao (OUST), who led the effort to recall Thao, expressed optimism on Thursday. “We have very serious challenges, and those challenges do not go away with the recall of the mayor,” said OUST spokesman Seneca Scott. “Now, with our interim mayor, there is also a problem. Nikki Bas has rubber-stamped everything that Mayor Thao has done, so we need to make sure we are staying on top of her.”

Carl Chan, a Price recall organizer, added that “It is a wake-up call for all of us to learn how to choose and pick the people who are supposed to serve us. The other 50 percent is making sure we are finding a replacement of this DA,” Chan said. “This person has to rebuild the district attorney’s office and also rebuild the confidence of the people.”

While Thao supporters said it is too early to call and that she may surge, the new results in on Thursday make hope for a turnaround extremely unlikely, as her recall totals mirror her disapproval ratings more and more. Should Thao be recalled, City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas would become interim Mayor until a new election is set next year. However, should Bas win her current Alameda County Supervisor race, the Council will have to appoint a new president to take on the interim Mayor role.

“It will be somebody on the Oakland City Council for a year,” explained Alameda County pollster Nathan Martin to the Globe on Thursday. “But more to the recall, Thao is, of course, really apprehensive right now. She can’t believe she is at this point, being recalled, after only a few years in office. But it’s the voters seeing her as doing that bad of a job. Voters across the state have gotten really angry over what a lot of leadership has done. And that’s why we saw the Thao recall, the Price recall. Down in LA Gascon is out. They’re mad as hell, they couldn’t take it anymore, and Democracy is righting the course for them.”

Updated results in the Sheng Thao recall race are expected soon.