Aisha Wahab received life-threatening voicemails in the aftermath of false mailers linking her to convicted rapist

Chamber poll gives Oakland mayor, council contests some needed context; San Leandro mayoral candidate outsourced his printing services to Florida

ELECTION 2022

Days until Election Day: 19.

10TH STATE SENATE DISTRICT

—IE MAILER’S AFTERMATH—State Senate candidate Aisha Wahab received two death threats from an unknown caller last week after voters received mailers via an Independent Expenditure Committee that falsely claimed she supported a lenient sentence for a convicted rapist.

—Audio of the two voicemails, each sent Oct. 12 to a phone number linked to Wahab’s campaign, includes an angry, manic caller vowing to kill Wahab. The pair of calls were made within a minute of each other.

—Hayward Police were made aware of the death threats, Wahab said. Wahab’s campaign released audio of the two chilling death threats on Wednesday afternoon.

Aisha Wahab 愛莎華 @aishabbwahab

Trigger Warning: Death Threats & Violent Language #shame on @CAREALTORS @Uber @TheRealCCPOA @edisonintl @CaliforniaBIA & Big #Pharma who paid nearly $1 million in false ads weaponizing rape & sexual assault in support of my opponent @LilyMei4Fremont - still has remained silent

—It’s unclear what triggered the angry caller, but the voicemails were made days after two Independent Expenditures Committees—Keep Californians Working and Keep California Golden—sent 10th State Senate District voters political mailers that sought to link Wahab to supporting leniency in the infamous rape case against former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner.

—Both IEs have also strongly supported the campaign of Wahab’s opponent, Lily Mei.

—The mailer was nonsensical, but it led Wahab’s campaign last week to send both IEs a cease and desist letter against sending additional false mailers on the subject. Lawyers for Keep Californians Working said they would not send another mailer, while Keep California Golden suggested the mailers constituted an opinion.

OAKLAND MAYOR/CITY COUNCIL

—CAMPAIGN SNAPSHOT—With less than three weeks until the ballots are counted, the Oakland Chamber of Commerce released polling on Wednesday showing the emergence of a two-person race for Oakland mayor between Sheng Thao and Loren Taylor, and surprisingly tight city council contests.

—Taylor received 21 percent of first-place support, followed by Thao at 20 percent, according to the poll conducted by FM3 Research. Support for the rest of the field then falls off considerably with Ignacio De La Fuente at 11 percent and the rest of the field under 6 percent. Treva Reid, once thought to be a player in this mayoral race, garnered just 5 percent in the poll. Twenty-seven percent of those polled, however, remain undecided.

—Despite the tightening two-person race for mayor, the poll gives some encouragement to Thao. Her campaign received 11 percent of second-place support—the highest in the field. In an evenly-matched race like this one, second- and third place ranked-choice votes will likely decide who becomes Oakland’s next mayor.

—There is also some encouragement for Taylor’s campaign. He has a clear advantage among voters 50 years and older, while Thao leads with voters under 50 years old. This may favor Taylor since older voters typically can be counted on to actually cast a ballot more than younger voters.

—COUNCIL CAMPAIGN CHAOS?—In the three City Council races, it appears voters are not paying attention. The most surprising numbers come from East Oakland’s District 6 where perennial candidate Nancy Sidebotham leads the field with 17 percent, followed by the well-funded, labor-backed campaign of Kevin Jenkins with 14 percent. However, undecided voters make up nearly half of those polled. A Sidebotham win, if possible, would be one of the biggest upsets in the East Bay.

—In District 2, Oakland City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas received 27 percent support, a 12-point advantage against upstart candidate Harold Lowe. In this race, a whopping 58 percent are undecided, which is a bad sign for Bas. In District 4, Janani Ramachandran leads Nenna Joiner, 36 percent to 28 percent, with a tad more than one-third of voters undecided.

SAN LEANDRO MAYOR

—BAD SIGN—It’s only seems to be getting worse for San Leandro mayoral candidate Bryan Azevedo. His spate of poor candidate forum appearances, the possibility that he violated the City Charter, and his shocking comments against the local Democratic Party has taken significant shine off of Azevedo’s campaign recently.

—Now comes word that those ubiquitous Azevedo for Mayor signs that have populated San Leandro for nearly two years are not even locally produced. Azevedo’s campaign paid a Florida-based print shop to make his campaign yard signs and printed materials, according to campaign finance reports.

—The disclosure is a slap in the face to local union print shops. Furthermore, one of the most popular print shops in the area, In & Out Printing Service, is located in San Leandro, yet Azevedo cut ties with the company some time ago. Nearly every other candidate in San Leandro elections this year is using In & Out Printing.

—Instead, Azevedo is saving some money on signs and other printed materials by farming them out to Go Union Printing, which is based in St. Petersburg, FL., and claims to be a union shop.

—Last year, Azevedo similarly used a cost-savings print shop located in Louisville, KY. In short, the person who want to be San Leandro’s mayor isn’t even supporting a small business in his own city.

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY

—A school board candidate in Lafayette used her campaign finance report as a means for playful self-expression. In the section of the Form 460 used for reporting campaign expenses, candidate Lind Larsen McSorley detailed costs associated with printed materials, such as yard signs and other campaign-related literature. But McSorley went further with the witty description of each item. “Awesome Yard Signs. So MUCH BETTER than theirs,” according to the campaign finance report from last month.

Cody Keller @codyjkeller

That's one way to file your Form 460. Yes, this is real. PS. these candidates are far-right supported school board candidates.