Oakland residents to vote on who will be their next mayor
Oakland voters are deciding whether to elect Mayor Barbara Lee to a full term or replace her with one of the three other candidates running in the 2026 midterms.
Lee was elected in 2024 by voters after former Mayor Sheng Thao was recalled. Prior to being mayor, Lee was a U.S. House representative and was first elected to Congress in 1996.
The candidates running to replace her are Brenda Grisham, Mindy Pechenuk and Julius Robinson.
Voters will be using ranked-choice voting when they cast their ballots for the mayoral race. Election officials will count all first-choice votes, and if a candidate has a majority of the vote, they will win.
If no candidate received a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate with the least number of votes will be eliminated. If an eliminated candidate was a voter's first choice, the voter's next ranked candidate will be counted. The process will then be repeated until a candidate secures a majority of the vote.
Lee comes into the race seeking a full term as Oakland mayor and highlighting her administration's work on reducing crime and recruiting more police officers. She has also cited improvement in illegal dumping and homelessness, but acknowledges that the city needs to expand housing and address encampments without simply moving unhoused people from one location to another
The former U.S. representative enjoys a 68% favorability rating in a recent Oakland Chamber of Commerce poll; however, the same poll shows her job-performance rating considerably lower at 52%. The poll also shows 46% of Oaklanders say the city is headed in the right direction versus 36% who say the city is on the wrong track, the first time since 2017 that positive responses have outnumbered negative ones.
Grisham's campaign website lists her as a longtime community advocate, business owner, and victims' rights advocate who announced her candidacy last year. She is also the founder of the nonprofit Christopher LaVell Jones Foundation, named after a son she lost to gun violence.
Grisham was among those who led the 2024 successful campaign to recall former Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price and has advocated for the use of automated license plate reader cameras. She proposes seeking philanthropic, state, and federal funding to help close the city's budget gap over imposing additional taxes on residents.
Pechenuk is an educator and political activist who ran unsuccessfully for Oakland mayor in 2025 and for other elected seats. A vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, her campaign website says she favors increased policing and action against open-air drug markets in the city. She also wants to provide tax incentives to attract businesses into the city and opposes any moratorium on data centers.
Pechenuk also favors speeding up building permits and expanding job and apprenticeship opportunities. She also strongly supports a proposed West Oakland coal export terminal, arguing that modern safeguards can address historic pollution in the area. Pechenuk maintains that Oakland's problems are a result of decades of failed leadership.
Robinson is a community organizer and former bank executive with more than 40 years of banking experience. He argues that Oakland needs new businesses and private investment to generate sustainable revenue, rather than relying on grants and philanthropy.
His campaign website calls for expanding access to capital for small, minority, and women-owned businesses, expanding down payment assistance for homeownership programs, and partnering with nonprofits and developers for increased affordable housing. Robinson also seeks full police staffing and sustainable funding for violence prevention programs such as Ceasefire.
