OAKLAND –Voters here have a choice of 10 candidates for mayor on their November ballot, but by most measures, the race comes to four: Ignacio De La Fuente, Treva Reid, Loren Taylor and Sheng Thao, all current or former City Council members with strong name recognition and ample contributions to fuel their campaigns.

With the race entering its final days, the most important source of campaign cash isn’t the candidates at all. Instead, it is a handful of independent expenditure committees, whose $1.2 million in spending outpaces what the four frontrunners have collected. The bulk of that money comes from labor interests backing Thao and business interests backing De La Fuente.

Unlike campaign-controlled donations solicited by the candidates, the independent committees aren’t limited to the amount of money they can raise. The committees work independently of the candidates, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to support those they prefer, or oppose those they hope to defeat. The money flows into ads, election mailers, rallies and foot soldiers deployed to get out the word to voters.

Although Taylor and Thao are projected to be in a tight race at the front of the pack, according to an Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce poll released last week, the influx of cash supporting Thao in the race’s final days raises questions about whether the scales could be tipped in her favor.

Independent expenditure committees supporting Thao have spent at least $701,000 this year – much of it produced by “Working Families for a Better Oakland,” a committee that’s largely backed by labor unions.

In contrast, Taylor and Reid have seen just $16,000 spent on their campaigns this year by an independent committee that splits its support between the two of them and De La Fuente.

De La Fuente is second to Thao in outside spending with at least $527,000 spent on his behalf this year, both from the forces seeking to bring coal shipments to the city’s harbor and a national realtors’ association that lobbies for more development.

When it comes to money raised by their campaigns, however, the tables are more evenly balanced. Taylor and Reid have raised at least $376,000 and $113,000 in direct contributions through Oct. 22, while Thao and De La Fuente have garnered $285,000 and $224,000, respectively.

Coal money draws backlash

Developers seeking to build an export terminal have spent years tied up in lawsuits with the city over whether coal could be one of the commodities shipped from the West Oakland harbor, near neighborhoods with higher levels of polluted air.

De La Fuente’s most significant source of outside spending is a committee – named “Californians for Safer Streets” – primarily backed by Jonathan Brooks of the Los Angeles-based investment firm, JMB Capital, which would operate the coal terminal. Brooks has contributed $550,000 to the committee, almost all of it in the past week alone. The committee has raised $691,000 this calendar year.

De La Fuente, who has promised to bring big developments to Oakland, demurs from saying explicitly whether he supports the terminal’s construction.

“I will work to try to attract any kind of business I can to create jobs and any kind of tax base,” he said in an interview. “But I don’t know what those developments will be. … I’m open for business, my friend.”

Talk of coal money pouring into the mayoral race drew a rally Thursday in front of City Hall, where longtime environmental advocates spoke out fiercely against the prospect of De La Fuente’s election.

But the longtime political veteran offers no comment on the pushback: “I will not get bullied into taking positions for political reasons,” he said.

Frontrunners take political aim at each other

As Taylor and Reid formally join forces in the late stages of election season, the two have gone to great lengths to distance themselves politically from Thao.

“It’s a teeny, teeny fraction of what (Thao) is getting,” Taylor said of the outside money being spent on his campaign. “So the fact that we’re doing as well as we are in the polls, the fact we’ve got the momentum – this is Oakland stepping up, and resonating with our ideas.”

The two have traded shots; Taylor has accused Thao of positioning herself as a “guaranteed vote” for her union backers, and Thao has labeled him a “status quo politician” due to Mayor Libby Schaaf’s endorsement of him.

The outside labor money is helping pay for a flood of campaign mailers backing Thao, with political slogans championing “change,” “leadership,” “a mayor like us” and “less talk and more action.”

“I have that support because they know that my values of inclusion, safety, and equity are their values too,” Thao said in an email about her union supporters. “I am proud to be supported by everyday Oaklanders and not corporate interests.”

Reid, meanwhile, isn’t surprised she has fallen so far behind in outside money interests, noting that Black women historically have “had a more difficult path” to getting elected.

“That’s an area where we’ve always had to work harder to engage our communities,” Reid said, “and build on the power of funding and the power of the vote.”

Reports of new spending in the election are coming in nearly every day, fueling dueling messages. For their part, Reid and Taylor are counting on their ranked-choice alliance to overcome the outside flow of cash.

“They can flood the TV ads, the mailboxes with mailers,” said Taylor. “We believe that our grassroots, Oakland-centric campaign can out-compete the interests that are not as connected to the community.”

---

• Report an error
• Policies and Standards
• Contact Us