Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County DA Pamela Price successfully recalled
OAKLAND, Calif. - History has been made in Alameda County and in Oakland as the progressive-minded District Attorney Pamela Price and Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao have been recalled by voters in Tuesday's election.
The Associated Press called the results of this week's vote on the D.A. recall on Friday evening. In the Price recall, 65% of voters said yes to the recall with 34% opposed. Both recalls needed a simple majority to pass.
The latest results show a similar count at 63.85% for the recall against Thao and 36.15% opposed.
As of Friday night, the AP did not call the results of the mayoral recall, but Thao issued a statement where she seemingly acknowledged defeat.
In her statement, she thanked Oaklanders for choosing her as the first Hmong-American woman to lead a major American city, which has been "the honor of my lifetime."
Price did not immediately issue a statement or speak after her loss.
These were the first successful recalls of an Oakland mayor and Alameda County D.A. in history.
"This is not a great election for incumbents," Brandice Canes-Wrone, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, told KTVU ahead of the election.
Proving that point: Incumbent Mayor London Breed lost her job to Daniel Lurie in San Francisco: incumbent Antioch Mayor Lamar Hernandez-Thorpe lost his seat to Ron Bernal, and Los Angeles County DA George Gascon lost his job to Nathan Hochman.
Both recalls mean that Thao and Price must vacate their seats, which they first won on progressive platforms in the post-George Floyd era.
Both recalls were largely funded by Phillip Dreyfuss, a Piedmont resident who has declined interviews to explain why he supported the efforts. And both were spearheaded by critics who complained about crime under the leadership of both women.
The last time a mayoral recall vote occurred in Oakland was in 1917 against Mayor John Davis, and it was unsuccessful, the city clerk’s office told the San Francisco Chronicle. There were calls to recall Mayor Libby Schaaf and Mayor Jean Quan, but those efforts never made the ballot.
There has never been a recall of an Alameda County DA.
Oakland mayor recall
The recall against Thao was first organized by retired Alameda County Superior Court Judge Brenda Harbin-Forte, who has since stepped down from the Oakland United to Recall Sheng Thao (OUST) campaign, to run for city attorney. She is trailing behind Ryan Richardson for that post.
Her sister, Gail Harbin, then became the spokesperson. Activist Seneca Scott and former President of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce Carl Chan have also championed loudly for Thao’s removal.
Thao’s critics have held a steady drumbeat of news conferences, calling the mayor incompetent and blaming her for Oakland’s past high crime rate, firing a popular police chief and missing out on millions on a retail theft grant the city missed the deadline for.
After Thao's concession, the Oakland Police Officers Union issued a statement where they claimed "victory" in both recalls and thanked supporters.
"We stood with Oakland residents for the recall of Mayor Sheng Thao for her defunding of police and for her gross fiscal mismanagement that has led Oakland into near bankruptcy," President of the Oakland Police Officers Association Sgty. Huy Nguyen's statement read in part.
They said the recalls symbolize a new day but acknowledged there is difficult work ahead.
In her defense, Thao has repeatedly said that she inherited a host of problems from past administrations and that she has kept Oakland on track, pointing to crime statistics that have been trending downward this year under her decision to resume the successful Ceasefire strategy, the sale of the city’s half of the Coliseum for $105 million, and plans to redevelop the Hegenberger corridor.
Thao reiterated these highlights in her concession speech, adding that under her watch, Oakland had zero homicides in October. The overall homicide rate is down by 30% this year compared to 2023 at this time.
"I am deeply proud of the progress we created together and I am committed to ensuring we stay on track by supporting a smooth transition," Thao wrote. It isn’t about me. It never has been. It has always been about Oakland. And the changes we have enacted in these two short years will be felt for generations to come."
With Thao gone, Oakland City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas, who is trailing in a close race with Emeryville City Councilman John Bauters to become an Alameda County supervisor, will step in as interim mayor until a special election can be held.
That election must be held within 120 days of Thao’s vacancy being formally declared open, which will likely happen before or by Dec. 17. That means a special election will most likely be held in late April.
Loren Taylor, whom Thao beat in the last election by a slim margin, is one of the people who said he’d be interested in the seat. Others have floated the names of U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee or newly elected City Councilman Zac Unger.
On Friday, Lee told KTVU that she wasn't thinking about that now, but she stopped short of saying no to a mayoral bid.
Pamela Price, Alameda County District Attorney, talks to the Chronicle editorial board on Wednesday, May 23, 2018 in San Francisco, Calif. (Photo By Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Alameda County DA recall
History was also made in Alameda County, when voters decided to remove the progressive-minded Price from her post as top prosecutor.
In 2022, Price won by vowing not to overcharge or overcriminalize defendants, especially Black and brown youth.
But the political tides have changed since then, as evidenced by voters approving Proposition 36, which increases penalties for theft and drug trafficking, and becoming more Republican in California counties that flipped from blue to red this election.
Price's interoffice tensions and interpersonal conflicts didn't help, either.
A group named SAFE, which stands for Save Alameda for Everyone, organized the recall, arguing that Price – a former civil rights attorney – didn’t prosecute defendants with harsh enough charges, and therefore made the community unsafe.
Price did have supporters though.
A group called Protect the Win for Public Safety and the ACLU of Northern California fought the recall, countering that blaming Price "for crime problems that have been decades in the making is blatantly dishonest."
And they noted that in 2023, Price had indeed charged about 60 murder cases during her tenure.
Now that Price has officially been recalled, the highest ranking officer in her office, Chief Assistant District Attorney Royl Roberts, is expected to take over, according to the East Bay Times.
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors would then appoint an interim district attorney, who would serve until the next general election in 2026.
It wasn’t immediately clear if a special election could also be held, or if the interim DA would just hold the seat for a year and a half.
What about San Francisco?
This was the first recall of a district attorney in Alameda County history, although Price is the second high-profile Bay Area district attorney to be recalled in the last two years.
In June 2022, 55% of voters supported the recall of progressive San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin.
The next month, Mayor London Breed appointed Brooke Jenkins as Boudin’s replacement. In November 2022, Jenkins then won the special election to serve out the remaining two years. Her term ends in January 2025.
Breed was elected out of office on Tuesday.
KTVU's Andre Torrez contributed to this report.