What to watch for at tonight’s first Alameda County DA forum
First candidate emerges for Wilma Chan’s District 3 supes seat
The four current candidates for the open Alameda County District Attorney office will meet tonight in the first candidate forum of the 2022 election cycle. Alameda County DA Nancy O’Malley announced last year that she would not seek re-election. Pamela Price, O’Malley’s opponent in 2018, is in a field with two members of the Alameda County DA’s office, Terry Wiley and Jimmie Wilson, along with Seth Steward, chief of staff for Oakland Councilmember Dan Kalb. The race, as currently constituted, will make history. The winner will become the first Black DA in Alameda County history.
—Tonight’s forum is hosted by Black Women Organized for Political Action (BWOPA). Register for the webinar here.
Here’s what to watch for tonight:
All eyes will be on Price, the presumed front runner and most experienced campaigner. In 2018, and all other campaigns Price has ran, she has been the chaser, not the one being chased. How does she handle this change in strategy?
Price’s advantage against O’Malley was race, and she used it to great effect to highlight O’Malley’s transgressions or inactions when it came to relations between minorities and law enforcement. But what does Price do now that all three of her opponents are Black? Obviously, she can trumpet being the only woman in the race, but it remains to be seen whether this strategy packs the same punch.
One other thing about Price: She’s definitely the rhetorical star in this race. She also has a flair for controversy. Now that the field is more evenly-matched than 2018, does she tamp down her rhetoric? She needs 50 percent of the electorate to win, and as we saw four years ago, a candidate for DA can sweep Oakland and Berkeley, but still only win 40 percent of the vote. Moderate suburban voters in places like Fremont and the Tri-Valley is where this race gets won.
Not much is know about Wiley, Wilson, and Steward, but most insiders believe Wiley is the candidate to watch.
I’m looking for a good showing from Steward. There is a good chance that Price, and her relatively high name-recognition, and the two members of the DA’s office, could cancel each other out and leave an opening for Steward, who has some experience with the San Francisco DA’s office.
There’s a good chance there will be questions about how each candidate will deal with prosecuting police misconduct. Those answers will likely be the headlines for tomorrow.
ELECTION 2022
—TAM FOR SUPERVISOR—Former Alameda Councilmember Lena Tam has filed an intent to run for the late Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan’s seat in District 3. Tam is the first candidate to officially declare an intent in what will be one of the most hard-fought June primary races in all the East Bay. Tam served on the Alameda City Council from 2006 to 2014. She lost a bid for the BART Board in 2014 to Robert Rayburn, and also made an unsuccessful attempt for a return to the Alameda City Council in 2016.
—CAMPAIGN POSTSCRIPT—Wilma Chan’s re-election campaign committee was terminated last week, according to the county registrar’s office. The account reported an end of the year total of $5,847 in contributions. At the time of Chan’s death on Nov. 8 her re-election campaign was already ramping up for the June 2022 primary. Many who first learned of her death by a motorist remarked they had been contacted just days earlier about a birthday-themed fundraiser for Chan. Many of the contributions made to Chan’s campaign prior to her death were returned. The campaign committee’s account was zeroed-out with most of the remaining funds going to its treasurer.
—AD20 UPDATE—While the race may be coalescing between a matchup between labor leader Liz Ortega-Toro and Dublin Councilmember Shawn Kumagai, former San Leandro Councilmember Ed Hernandez said he’s still very much contemplating a run of his own. Hernandez’s re-election to the San Leandro City Council was dashed in 2020 after one term. The inclusion of San Leandro into the 20th Assembly District offers those in that city the first tangible shot at the Legislature in over a decade. In 2010, the California Redistricting Commission lumped San Leandro with political powerhouses, Oakland and Alameda.
—WORD ON THE STREET—Some supporters are urging political firebrand Luis Reynoso, the former Hayward Unified School Board member who is now a member of the Chabot-Las Positas Community College Board of Directors, to challenge Rep. Eric Swalwell. Reynoso ran for the state Assembly in 2012 as a Republican, but is now listed as No Party Preference. Based on Reynoso’s blunt rhetoric and snappy one-liners, such a candidacy would probably yield little other than a certain booking(s) on the “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS
—Sorry about loose notes and weird formatting in Tuesday’s newsletter. Blame some bad Wi-Fi. The cleaned up version is available on the website, eastbayinsiders.substack.com.
—This is not a correction, but a clarification about an item in Monday’s newsletter, spurred on by a loyal reader. Alameda County Sheriff Gregory Ahern, and all candidates this June for county offices, need a 50 percent plus 1 majority of the vote to win the race outright and avoid a November run-off between the top two finishers.