The stretch run

Oakland special mayoral election preview

☕️MORNING BUZZ

—Oakland mayoral candidate Loren Taylor released internal polling on Saturday that shows him in a virtual tie with front runner Barbara Lee in first-place votes.

• Barbara Lee 45%

• Loren Taylor 41%

• Renia Webb 1%

• Undecided 8%

Five percent of those surveyed support one of the other eight candidates for mayor.

The poll was conducted by Bluepoint Polling on March 17-18, and includes 854 likely voters. The survey’s margin of error is +/-3.5 percent.

—Further breaking down the poll results:

LEE

• Strongly support Lee: 34.5%

• Lean towards Lee: 10.5%

TAYLOR

• Strongly support Taylor: 30.4%

• Lean towards Taylor: 10.2%

—Among the findings:

Taylor’s name-recognition has steadily improved since polling in January that had Lee dominating with 56 percent to 23 percent for Taylor.

The number of undecided voters are rapidly dwindling. A survey from the same pollster in February showed nearly 32 percent were undecided. The percentage is now nine.

It’s undoubtedly a two-person race. The rest of the field barely registers a blip in the poll. In a close ranked choice voting contest, the group of eight unknown candidates could decide the election, and in unpredictable ways.

The general consensus is the makeup of the special election will skew toward older voters and homeowners. This poll is weighted toward both demographics.

—THAO 2.0—Oakland Neighbors, Businesses and Public Safety Advocates, an independent expenditure committee supporting Loren Taylor and opposing Barbara Lee, released a second hard-hitting digital ad on Friday.

The video attempts to inexplicably link Lee to the vastly unpopular Thao, drawing similarities between their donors and union support, the Duongs, and the use of the campaign slogan, “One Oakland.”

—MG-NO DEMS—The uncertainty expressed by some members of the Greater Metropolitan Oakland Democratic Club about Barbara Lee’s fitness to be Oakland’s next mayor revealed itself in the endorsement vote.

—The MGO Democratic Club offered no endorsement in the special mayoral race, the club announced on Sunday night. No candidate for mayor reached the requisite 60 percent support of its membership.

Signs that Oakland voters are concerned about Barbara Lee's age

—Last week, in what was supposed to be private deliberations, several MGO members said they worried about Lee’s ability to serve as mayor, along with worries about her storied political career concluding like that of Ron Dellums, who ended a notable career in congress with a dud as Oakland’s mayor in the late 2000s.

—The club also made no endorsement in the competitive special election in the Oakland City Council District 2 race.

—However, the MGO Dems endorsed Measure A, the half-cent sales ballot measure.

—More inside:

• Oakland special mayoral election preview

• Hayward’s housing boom is coming at the expense of its trees

• Former Berkeley councilmember is decamping across the bay

• Campaign finance data for the weekend

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