OAKLAND — After coming up just short in the 2022 race to be the city’s mayor, Loren Taylor tried to keep himself busy.
He helped launch a nonprofit, Empower Oakland, which has organized and fundraised for politicians who oppose the city’s powerful labor unions. Last year, he was elected to the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee, an influential body in East Bay politics.
Through it all, Taylor has spent a lot of time attempting to remind the public, in press interviews and public appearances, that he still wants to be the mayor of Oakland.
After resolving a health scare in December, the former District 6 City Council member is ready for another go-around, emboldened by the dramatic fall from grace of Sheng Thao, the ex-mayor elected in 2022 who was booted by voters in November and now faces felony conspiracy charges.
Now Taylor’s challenge may be finding an identity for his campaign against a progressive heavyweight — former U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, whose entry as a mayoral candidate immediately cleared the field of most established prospects in the upcoming April 15 special election.
“I said to Loren, ‘Why are you running? I’d be running away,’” Greg McConnell, a political consultant whose firm often backs tougher-on-crime, more fiscally moderate candidates in Oakland elections, said in an interview.
“He said, ‘Well, Greg, I really want to do it for the city,’” McConnell added. “And I said, ‘Yeah, Loren, I know that’s a stock answer.’”
Lee, wildly popular and recognizable in the East Bay, is considered the overwhelming favorite in a 10-candidate race that includes Taylor and ex-Thao staffer Renia Webb, plus former Olympic skier Elizabeth Swaney, Bay Area Council staffer Suz Robinson, paralegal Tyron Jordan and several fringe hopefuls who appear regularly on local ballots.
Taylor has promised, if elected, to require salary concessions from the unions that represent city workers, eliminate a license tax for low-earning small businesses and prioritize the funds that remain in the city’s crippled budget to hire more than 100 additional police officers.
These policy ideas were echoed by candidates who received backing from Taylor’s nonprofit in the November election. But the slate suffered losses to labor-backed candidates in key races, including two open City Council spots, the city attorney’s office and an Alameda County supervisor seat.
Lee has yet to unveil her own policy platform, but she is racking up endorsements far and wide from the state’s Democratic power players and Oakland’s community institutions alike.
Even former Mayor Libby Schaaf, who told KQED last October that she would back Taylor if Thao were recalled by voters, has instead endorsed Lee — a sign, political observers said, that the Democratic establishment is firmly in lockstep in favor of the retired congresswoman.
“I’m not going to back down when someone with strong name recognition jumps in,” Taylor said in an interview about his candidacy. “I have been in it, committed to actually bringing the necessary change, transformation and solid leadership to Oakland for a long time.”
The race is widely seen as being between the two of them; Lee is telling voters not to list anyone else as a choice for mayor in the city’s ranked-choice voting system, surprising advocates of the format because many of its public criticisms have been levied by Taylor, who lost the 2022 race despite receiving the most first-place votes.
For his part, Taylor aims to tap the 86,000 voters who supported Thao’s recall, especially after federal prosecutors accused the ex-mayor of accepting bribes in the form of negative 2022 campaign mailers against him.
The attack ads darkened Taylor’s skin color in an image of his face and labeled him a “fraud.”
“We ran a fair, clean campaign,” Taylor said. “If not for the corruption and political misdealings of Sheng Thao and those who supported and endorsed her, we would have a different administration today.”
His new mayoral bid raised $57,000 in contributions through Jan. 31.
Having lost to Thao by 677 ranked-choice votes, he’s fought at times to keep out of her shadow. Even his campaign-filing event Jan. 16 was eclipsed by a much-weightier revelation the same day that the ex-mayor had been indicted by a federal grand jury. When Thao was arraigned in court the following day, Taylor gave interviews outside.
He has sought to keep himself in the public eye, holding several news conferences in the past month, including one where he pleaded for an end to remote work for city employees — only to find out, in real time, that city leadership had already initiated a return to office.
“I’m not aware of that — I am glad to hear that things are moving,” Taylor said upon hearing the news, before asking for more details.
The organizers of the recall movement have a mixed relationship with Taylor, who was friendly with its financial backer, the hedge-fund executive Phillip Dreyfuss. Taylor hesitated to back the recall last spring, but more recently has criticized Lee for opposing it.
Lee, on the other hand, has the support of two former recall organizers, pro-police activist Carl Chan and former council candidate Derreck Johnson, and she even recently arranged a meeting with key members of the movement.
Chris Moore, another prominent recall organizer, argued in an interview that Taylor will need to present as less civil and more attention-grabbing if he wants to overcome the gravity of Lee’s campaign.
“It’s hard, though, because Loren is a mild-mannered guy,” Moore said. “He speaks it how it is, but he does it in a very businesslike manner. … You don’t want to say crazy things, but you want to say what’s on people’s minds.”
Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at shomik@bayareanewsgroup.com.
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