2014 state and municipal midterm elections were held on Tuesday, November 4th across the United States. This page is about the mayoral election in Oakland. Visit the 2014 Elections Portal for all other 2014 elections topics.

• Learn how to register to vote for future elections!
• See also: 2014 City Council Elections, 2014 City Auditor Election

OW Team | Job Description | The Official Candidates | Ballot Order | Candidates who Didn't End Up Running | Check Who Has Filed | Names Mentioned in Connection with the Election | Polls | Timeline | Campaign Donations | Calendar of Events | Related Pages | References | Questions! | General News Stories

Note: The Oakland Wiki 2014 Mayoral Election Team, a group of volunteers, are actively working to keep this page up to date as neutrally as possible. Please feel free to join us by adding content to this page and/or tweeting with the hashtag #oakmtg.

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Job Description

Before you vote, know what your candidate needs to do! (separate page)

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Official Candidates

These candidates have all filed documents allowing them to fundraise which signals intent to run. The nomination period began July 14th, 2014 and ends August 8, 2014 (unless Jean Quan does not file in which case it is extended until Aug 13, 2014). Check current status of candidates here.

These candidates have qualified for the ballot.

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Ballot Order

The candidates will appear in the following order on the ballot:

• Charles Williams: Engineering Manager Administrator

• Dan Siegel: Civil Rights Attorney

• Rebecca Kaplan: Oakland Councilmember At-Large

• Jason Anderson: Communications Director

• Courtney Ruby: Oakland City Auditor

• Eric Wilson: Non-profit Employee

• Saied Karamooz: Private Sector Executive

• Pat McCullough: Technician/Lawyer/Entrepreneur

• Nancy Sidebotham: Tax Preparer

• Peter Liu: Father, Businessman, Executive

• Joe Tuman: Government/Law Professor

• Ken Houston: Contractor

• Bryan Parker: Businessperson/University Trustee

• Libby Schaaf: Oakland City Councilmember

• Jean Quan: Mayor of Oakland

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These candidates filed papers but ended up not running or qualifying for the ballot.

Unofficial Candidates

• Einstein. Cannot officially file because of human-centric bias in election law.

To see who has officially filed finance forms and find any of these forms, click here. Under the yellow boxes, you will see “Browse Candidates & Measures by Election.” Click the 11/04/2014 tab and then the Mayor - City of Oakland tab to expand. You can also check here (click "2014 Candidate List").

Names mentioned in connection with the 2014 Mayoral Election (strikethroughs represent no longer running and/or confirmed as never running)

• Gilda Gonzales - Port of Oakland president and former chief of staff under then-mayor Jerry Brown
• Larry Reid, District 7 Councilmember
• Glenn Kaplan - On August 23, the Bay Area News Group reported that the owner of Make Westing was considering running on a law and order platform.⁵
• As of June 19th, 2013, Facebook pages were created in alleged attempts to convince two people to run for Mayor, but they do not appear to be serious candidates.
  • Zachariah Keiler-Bradshaw
  • Daniel Malin
• Candidates mentioned by Zennie (and Zennie only):
  • Anne Gust Brown - On September 5, Zennie reported that Jerry Brown’s wife and current Oakland resident was seriously considering running for mayor. Unconfirmed.⁶
• Doug Boxer - on September 9th, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Senator Barbara Boxer’s son and founder of Let’s Go Oakland, a campaign to keep the A’s in Oakland is considering running.⁷ Unconfirmed.
• Desley Brooks - This February 28, 2014 tweet suggests Desley Brooks is jumping into the race following the news that Courtney Ruby is in.

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Polls:

• A survey of 400 likely voters was commissioned in late April by the Jobs and Housing Coalition. According to an article in the Tribune, the poll showed Quan leading the field with 20 percent of first-round votes. Following were Schaaf with 15 percent; Tuman with 8 percent; Parker with 7 percent; Siegel with 5 percent; and City Auditor Courtney Ruby with 4 percent. About a quarter of respondents were undecided. After the ranked-choice eliminations, the survey showed Quan beating Schaaf 53 percent to 47 percent.
• The Oakland Chamber of Commerce commissioned a poll in October, 2013 (full text here). The results regarding the Mayor read:

”As you may know, Jean Quan is running for re-election as Mayor of Oakland. If the election were held today would you definitely vote for Quan, probably vote for Quan, probably vote for someone else, or definitely vote for someone else?”

Definitely Quan 5

Probably Quan 13

Probably Else 23

Definitely Else 46

(Don’t know/not sure)13

(Refused) 0

• A poll commissioned by the Jobs and Housing Coalition and executed by the David Binder Research Group in November, 2013, showed Jean Quan leading at the polls. The poll was taken while Schaaf was only rumored to be running, and before she had officially declared. In a mock race with Rebecca Kaplan, Quan dropped to second. Results: Oakland Mayoral Poll
• Jean Quan 32 percent
  Joe Tuman 22 percent
  Libby Schaaf 16 percent
  Bryan Parker 10 percent
  Undecided/Someone else 20 percent
  
  POLL INCLUDING REBECCA KAPLAN
  Rebecca Kaplan 26 percent
  Jean Quan 20 percent
  Joe Tuman 17 percent
  Libby Schaaf 15 percent
  Bryan Parker 6 percent
  Undecided/Someone else 16 percent¹⁰

February 5, 2014 EMC Poll

The results printed in Matier and Ross’s column in the San Francisco Chronicle show Kaplan leading with 18% of the vote if she enters the race and Quan getting only 10% of votes. Schaff received 16% of the vote and 41% of voters were undecided.

However, Libby Schaaf’s campaign gave the Oakland Post results from the same poll that show Schaaf with 19% of the vote and Quan with 13%, so it’s not exactly clear what the results of this poll actually show.

Some excerpts of the survey instrument from an EMC poll from February 5, 2014, commissioned by Libby Schaaf’s campaign:

OakMayor2014.com / FM3 Oakland Mayoral Poll

OakMayor2014.com recently commissioned a poll to look at the Oakland mayor’s race and the city council races in districts 2, 4, and 6. The poll was conducted by the Oakland-based public opinion research firm FM3. Respondents were asked their top three choices for mayor, and for city council if applicable, and a simulated ranked-choice voting (RCV) elimination analysis was conducted to determine which candidates would be the likely winners using Oakland’s recently adopted RCV election method.

Methodology

FM3 Research completed 1,012 telephone interviews with likely November 2014 voters in the City of Oakland

• Interviews were conducted September 8-14, 2014
• Interviews conducted on landlines and cell phones
• Interviews conducted in English, Spanish and Chinese (both Cantonese and Mandarin)

712 interviews were conducted citywide

An additional 300 interviews were conducted in the 2nd, 4th and 6th City Council Districts, yielding the following total number of interviews in each District:

• 209 in City Council District 2
• 206 in City Council District 4
• 211 in City Council District 6

Margin of sampling error of +/-3.7% for the citywide results

Margin of sampling error of +/-6.9% for the City Council District results

Due to rounding, not all percentages sum to 100%

• Names and ballot designations for all certified candidates in each race were read to respondents.
• The candidates were read in random order.
• Respondents were asked for their first, second and third choices.
• To model ranked-choice voting, undecided voters were eliminated. Supporters of the lowest-ranked candidate were re-allocated based on their second-and third-choice preferences. The process was repeated until a candidate reached majority support.

Key Findings

Sizable proportions of voters remain undecided in all four elections, enough to swing any of the elections in the favor of several different candidates.

• In the race for Mayor, Kaplan, Quan and Schaaf are the leading vote-getters. After Schaff was eliminated through the RCV process, Kaplan (57.5%) won the modeled ranked-choice vote over Quan (42.5%). 39% initially undecided.

• In CCD 2, King (55%) wins the modeled ranked-choice vote over Guillen (45%). 62% initially undecided.

• In CCD 4, Broadhurst (60%) wins the modeled ranked-choice vote with Washington (36%) in second place. 64% initially undecided.
• In CCD 6, Brooks (64%) wins the modeled ranked-choice vote with Johnson in second place (19%). 47% initially undecided.

Full Poll Results

Full results, crosstabs, and the survey instrument are posted on oakmayor2014.com: LINK

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Timeline

Mayoral candidates started showing up in May 2013. According a May East Bay Citizen article, Bryan Parker, Gilda Gonzales*, Joe Tuman and Courtney Ruby* were considering running. According to the same article, Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan will not be running for mayor.¹*As of May 31, 2013, Ruby and Gonzales are not running for mayor. Ruby is running for re-election for auditor. Alameda County supervisor. Nate Miley had also been rumored but is not entering the race. Rebecca Kaplan had been mentioned but is not running.²

As of June 21, 2013, only Jean Quan and Patrick McCullough had filed papers for the 2014 election.³

On July 8th, Joe Tuman sent out a newsletter saying he was exploring running for mayor.

On July 29, Joe Tuman sent out an email saying, “A few days ago I formally entered the race to become the next Mayor of Oakland. The response has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive. Now I am asking you to join me in this journey to provide real leadership and solutions for our city. . . . .”

On November 13th, Zennie wrote a detailed blog post on why current candidates should be concerned about a Schaaf campaign and discusses possible advantageous alliances. Libby Schaaf Enters Oakland Mayor Race: Implications.

2014

On January 31st, the first real funding cycle ended and the Oakland Tribune published an article revealing that the total funds raised were this: (you can see all of this for yourself in the same place where you check who’s running in the yellowish box above.)

• Parker: $175,082
• Tuman: $145,350 (began fundraising in July)
• Quan: $129,494
• Schaaf: $123,147 (began fundraising in December)
• Siegel did not report- entered race after reporting period ended¹³

In February, 2014, a spoof (?) candidate was created: A dog named Einstein is running for mayor. His platform is less police, no surveillance, etc.

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Campaign Donations

• Online finance information and analysis.
• Campaign Filing and Disclosure Deadlines
• To view campaign disclosures:
  • Go to the Public Portal for Campaign Finance Disclosure
  • All campaign filings have also been compiled and analyzed by www.oakmayor2014.com HERE
  • Search by name, filer ID, date, or browse by election
• Learn about Oakland’s Campaign Finance Reform
• See where the money is
• July 31, 2013, was the deadline to file campaign contributions made between January 31 and June 30, 2013.
• January 31, 2014 was the deadline to file campaign contributions made between July 1, 2013 and December 31, 2013.
• An awesome website featuring pretty charts and graphs detailing contributions to each of the major campaigns and who has donated to them. Bayreporta -> bayreporta.com/oakland-elections-2014/

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OakMayor 2014

www.oakmayor2014.com is a website designed to be an information portal for the November 2014 Oakland mayoral election. This website is organized by Oaklanders Phil Tagami and Joshua Daniels who believe there needs to be a place where Oakland voters can come to get clear, unbiased information on the candidates and the issues.

Throughout the campaign season the site will grow to include information about ranked-choice voting, polling place information, how to register to vote, information on all of the candidates, candidate endorsements, links to news stories, etc. The mayoral candidates will also be asked questions on a regular basis throughout the campaign, and responses will be posted to the site.

Candidate Questions

Throughout the mayoral campaign, OakMayor 2014 will ask all of the candidates questions and then post all of their responses online. With 15 candidates for mayor, a traditional debate becomes all but impossible. Our hope with the candidate question section of the site is that by giving all the candidates ample time to respond and posting all the responses together, that it will make it easier for voters to meaningfully compare and contrast the positions of the candidates on numerous important issues.

LINK TO CANDIDATE QUESTION PAGE

Candidate Pages

All of the candidates for Mayor of Oakland have a candidate page on www.oakmayor2014.com. All candidates were given the chance to submit their own candidate statement, photograph, and are encouraged to submit new candidate endorsements as the campaigns receive them. Candidate pages also have links to the candidates' campaign websites, Twitter accounts, ballot designation, campaign finances, and links to all of the official FPPC campaign filings. As the candidates are asked questions, their responses are also added to the candidate pages.

Links to candidate pages on OakMayor2014:

Jason Anderson

Ken Houston

Rebecca Kaplan

Saied Karamooz

Peter Liu

Pat McCullough

Bryan Parker

Jean Quan

Courtney Ruby

Libby Schaaf

Nancy Sidebotham

Dan Siegel

Joe Tuman

Charles Williams

Eric Wilson

Voter Information

The site also includes extensive information on the voting process, voting by mail, Ranked-Choice Voting, how to register to vote, candidates' campaign finances, historical voter turnout, voting rights for those with convictions, and links and summaries of the latest relevant news articles on the Oakland mayoral race.

Links on OakMayor2014:

VOTER INFORMATION (Voting by mail, registering to vote, important dates, voting rights for those with convictions and/or incarcerated.

RANKED-CHOICE VOTING FAQ (Explanation of Ranked-Choice Voting, videos, links, and the history of Ranked-Choice Voting in Oakland.)

HISTORICAL VOTER TURNOUT (Analysis and overview of historical voter turnout in the City of Oakland.)

CAMPAIGN FINANCES (Total amount raised by each candidate, with links to all campaign filings.)

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Calendar of Events

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See Also

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References

1. Tavares, Steven. “List Of Possible Challengers To Oakland Mayor Quan Begins To Emerge.” East Bay Citizen: May 16, 2013.
2. Artz, Matthew. “Citywise: Courtney Ruby won’t challenge Jean Quan in Oakland mayor’s race.” Bay Area News Group: May 31, 2013.
3. Kuruvila, Matthai. “Bryan Parker to oppose Quan for Oakland Mayor.” SFGate.com: (accessed 6/21/13).
4. Kuruvila.
5. Artz, Matthew and Matt O’Brien. ”Citywise: Fed up Oakland bar owner exploring mayoral bid.” Mercury News: Aug 23, 2013.
6. Abraham, Zennie. “Anne Gust Brown To Run For Mayor Of Oakland: Hot Rumor.” Zennie62 Blog: Sep 5, 2013.
7. Garafoli, Joe. “Is Doug Boxer — Sen. Barbara Boxer’s son — mulling a run for Mayor of Oakland?” SFGate.com: Sep 9, 2013.
8. Abraham, Zennie. “Oakland News: Schaaf, Kaplan For Mayor Of Oakland? Tagami Wants Oakland Trib.” Zennie62.com: Nov 6, 2013.
9. Gammon, Robert. “Oakland Mayor’s Race Heats Up.” East Bay Express: Nov 20, 2013. (reference deleted)
10. Artz, Matthew. “Poll shows Jean Quan leading Oakland mayor’s race.” Oakland Tribune: Dec 26, 2013.
11. Abraham, Zennie. “Dan Siegel, Former Quan Aide, Occupy Oakland Hero, To Run For Mayor Of Oakland.” Zennie62.com: Dec 27, 2013.
12. Abraham, Zennie. “Nancy Sidebotham Running For Mayor Of Oakland: Blasts Joe Tuman, Libby Schaaf.” Zennie62.com: Jan 3, 2014. (reference deleted)
13. Artz, Matthew. “Oakland: Mayor Jean Quan still trails mayoral money race.” Oakland Tribune: Jan 31, 2014.
14. Abraham, Zennie. “Jason Kane Anderson Is Oakland Green Party Candidate For Mayor.” Zennie62.com: Feb 1, 2014.
15. ”Citywise: West Oakland Youth Center could open this year,” Oakland Tribune, Jan 3, 2014
16. Matier & Ross. “Oakland City Auditor Courtney Ruby enters mayor’s race.” SFGate.com, Feb 26, 2014. (reference deleted)
17. Gammon, Robert, “Why Rebecca Kaplan Would Help the Oakland Mayor’s Race.” East Bay Express, February 26, 2014 (reference deleted)
18. Artz, Matthew and Matt O'Brien. "Citywise: Kaplan mum on Oakland mayoral bid." Oakland Tribune: April 11, 2014. (reference deleted)

19. Matier, Phillip and Andrew Ross. "East Bay Assembly race draws big special interest funds." SFGate.com: June 1, 2014. (reference deleted)

20. Kane, Will. "Oakand’s Rebecca Kaplan leaves a political – and stinky – mess." SFGate.com: June 10, 2014. (reference deleted)

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Questions!

Please add questions (and answers) below. We should also incorporate answers into the main text once we figure out the answers!

Question that arrived via email to contact@oaklandwiki.org in 11/13: “I have found it hard to locate the date by which 2014 mayoral candidates must file papers declaring their candidacy. I think that would be interesting to include…”

• The city site says “The Nomination Period opens 113 days before an election and closes 88 days before the election. During the nomination period, those persons interested in running for elected office may pick up a Candidate Nomination Packet.” So it appears that 88 days before the election is the deadline. You have to file a number of forms before the end of the nomination period. In 2012, you had to file all the forms indicated on page 8 of this pdf of the candidate nomination packet (found on this page on the city’s site). As of 11/13, the city hadn’t yet posted updated guidelines for 2014, so those rules might change (but they also might not). (I might be totally confused on this issue, if so, please correct and delete this :)) - mk30

Question: All of the 410s and 501s filled out so far (December 3) by candidates are marked nonpartisan. Are these candidates truly without a party or is there another reason for not marking them as such?

• I believe, but cannot yet confirm, that the charter and/or one or more city ordinances specify that all positions are by definition non-partisan.
  • Answer: all municipal elections in the state of California are non-partisan by tradition, but there is no section of the elections code requiring cities to meet this tradition.

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General News Stories

• Oakland North Staff. "Early candidates for Oakland's fall mayoral race outlines platforms." Oakland North: May 29, 2014.

• Artz, Matthew. "Police shortfall looming large in Oakland's mayor's race." Oakland Tribune: May 27, 2014.

• Payton, Brenda. “Payton: Sizing up Oakland mayoral candidates.” Oakland Tribune: Feb 9, 2014.

• Tavares, Steven. “An Ending to Oakland’s Stadium Issues May Hinder Quan’s Mayoral Challengers.” EBCitizen.com: Feb 7, 2014.

• Kane, Will. "Meet Oakland’s 15 mayoral candidates." SFGate.com: Aug 29, 2014.

• Kane, Will. "Crowded field a challenge for Oakland mayor, voters." SFGate.com: Aug 31, 2014.

• Diaz, John. " Oakland mayoral debate: The Scorecard." Sfgate.com: Sep 17, 2014.

• Tavares, Steven. "Notes from the Campaign Trail: The Best and Worst of the Oakland Mayoral Campaigns." East Bay Express: Sep 19, 2014.

• Musiker, Cyrus. "What Oakland Residents Want From Their Next Mayor." KQED: Sep 19, 2014.

• Gammon, Robert. "From Siegel to Parker :A political guide to the top candidates in the 2014 Oakland mayor’s race." East Bay Express: Oct 8, 2014.

• Kane, Will. "Oakland’s shrug-inducing, overstuffed, unexciting mayoral race." SFGate.com: Oct 9, 2014.

• Carroll, Jon. "So many candidates, so few choices." SFGate.com: Oct 14, 2014.

• Shaw, Randy. "SCHAAF BATTLES KAPLAN IN OAKLAND MAYOR’S RACE." Beyond Chron: Oct 20, 2014.

• "Oakland's Race For Mayor." SFGate.com: n.d.

• Tavares, Steven. "A Case of Newspaper Endorsement Confusion in the Oakland Mayor's Race." EBCitizen.com: Oct 20, 2014.

• Rauch, Catherine. "Crime and the Oakland Mayor's Race." Oakland Magazine: October, 2014.

• Artz, Matthew. "Oakland mayor's race could leave "outsiders" still looking in." Oakland Tribune: Nov 2, 2014.

• Wolff, Phil "Who won Oakland’s no-money race for mayor?" Medium: Dec 26, 2014.

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