Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, Alameda Co. DA Pamela Price recalled by East Bay voters

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Recall campaigns in the East Bay to oust Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela appear to have won by wide margins.

The effort to recall Thao was approved with 63.85% in favor and 36.15% opposing, according to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters.

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Recall proponents successfully tapped into Oakland voters' fears about crime, despite recent data showing a 33% drop in homicides in Oakland, zero homicides in October and an overall crime rate drop by 37% from a year ago, according to the Oakland Police Department.

Thao was elected mayor in 2022 in a ranked choice election.

The president of the Oakland City Council will step in as interim mayor until a special election can be held, likely in April.

Mayor Thao released the following statement Friday night in response to her recall:

Oaklanders,
Thank you for choosing me to serve as your Mayor. As the first Hmong American woman to become the mayor of a major American City, it has been the honor of my lifetime.

It was my goal to make Oakland safer, cleaner, and more vibrant. And I am proud of what we accomplished together. We brought crime down dramatically across the board with a historic 35% reduction in homicides. For the first time in over a decade, Oakland went over a month without a single murder. Our work literally saved lives.

We also resolved hundreds of encampments, have over 1,500 units of affordable housing in development this year alone, delivered the largest IT investment in our 9-1-1 infrastructure in two decades, installed 290 Flock Cameras, brought 100,000 happy and spending baseball fans to West Oakland and paved an Oakland record amount of miles.

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. 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.

Pamela Price Recall

The campaign to remove Price from the district attorney's office won by a similar margin, with 65.22% in favor and 34.78% opposed in unofficial results.

Soon after Price took office, opponents launched a petition drive and ultimately gathered enough signatures to place her name on a recall ballot, maintaining that her progressive reform platform was too soft on criminals and led to increasing crime -- making her the first district attorney in the county's history to face a recall.

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Price won the 2022 election with roughly 53% of the vote and became the first African American woman to hold the county's top prosecutor job.

Recall supporters have collectively spent roughly $2.6 million to remove Price from office via two primary campaign finance committees -- Save Alameda For Everyone and Supporters of Recall Pamela Price, which has significant financial support from several East Bay police officers' unions, including Oakland's and the Deputy Sheriffs Association of Alameda County, along with PG&E and Philip Dreyfuss, a wealthy hedge fund executive and Piedmont resident.

The video in the media player above is from a previous report.