So much for the tolerant left!
Fed-up voters in the ultra-liberal Bay Area of California have voted to clean house after blaming far-left politicians for rampant crime, spreading homelessness and a general sense of fear on the streets.
Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao capitulated on Nov. 11 after an overwhelming 62% of voters opted to remove her from office — a historic result coming just two years into a term marked by complaints of mismanagement and an FBI raid on her home.
Following Thao out the door with a losing 64% recall vote will be Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, whom critics characterized as a progressive ideologue pushing “catch and release” policies that routinely turned criminals back out on the streets to continue preying on the people of Oakland.
And across the bay, San Francisco Mayor London Breed lost her re-election to Daniel Lurie, a Levi Strauss heir and fellow Democrat who ran on a promise to clean up the streets.
The revolt was not just at the local level. The Bay Area voted for Kamala Harris by a landslide — but President-elect Donald Trump did 3.5 percentage points better in Alameda County this year than in 2020. In San Francisco County, where Harris made her career as district attorney, she performed more than 5 points worse than President Biden did four years ago.
The trend is not isolated to this lefty corner of northern California. Across the while state, Trump gained four points from 2020, while voters overwhelmingly passed a measure, Proposition 36, to strengthen drug and shoplifting penalties.
“Voters have decided it’s time to have a change,” said Carl Chan, an activist who spearheaded the campaign to recall Price. “They want someone who can truly perform their job and not make it about implementing the ideology.”
“Ideology does not match reality, so the voters have decided to vote,” Chan added.
And there are more than a few Oaklanders who say they suffered at the hands of liberal policies.
“It’s been like the wild-wild west. That’s the only way I can put it,” said Patricia Harris, whose 28-year-old son was shot in the face and killed on an Oakland night in 2021. “It’s scary. It’s very scary.”
Homicides in Oakland surged by 72% during the pandemic. Harris said local officials failed to stop the violence, and failed to get justice.
She watched her son’s killer walk free from court on two and a half years of time served after DA Price’s office cut a deal that reduced his charge to manslaughter.
“She looked out for perpetrators versus the victims. It’s like we were the enemy,” Harris said.
Despite the overwhelming vote against her, Price still hasn’t conceded. She instead released a statement decrying “merchants of fear,” and insisting she won’t back down until the every last vote is tallied and the election is certified on Dec. 5, according to KTVU.
Thao also resisted concession at first, but finally gave in once the election was officially called on Nov. 11. In a departing statement, she touted a “historic 35% reduction in homicides,” saying “our work literally saved lives.”
Violence, robberies and burglaries continued to climb in the double digits in Thao’s first year in office. Murders rose 5% in 2023.
Numbers from the Oakland Police Department showed nearly across-the-board drops in crime — including homicides — so far this year. But the veracity of that data has been cast into doubt after a July San Francisco Chronicle investigation indicated archaic cataloguing procedures and cherry-picked numbers could be vastly inflating Oakland’s numbers.
A reported 35% drop in homicides alone could have been overstated by as much as 15%, the Chronicle reported.
Whatever the numbers, Oaklanders feel what they have been seeing on the streets does not match what leaders have been telling them about the streets.
“Murders have been happening, just senseless murders, senseless,” said Virginia Nishita, whose husband Kevin — a former police officer — was gunned down the day before Thanksgiving in 2021 by a crew of thugs trying to steal camera equipment from a news crew he was working security for.
“We’re talking about cars being vandalized, broken into. People being hit and sucker-punched in the face or from behind. And then their purses or bags being taken,” she added.
After Virginia’s husband was killed, DA Price’s predecessor gave the suspects murder charges that would land them in jail for life.
When Price took office she reduced their charges to allow them parole after less than 25 years, part of a policy of cutting back on so-called “enhancements” that upgrade charges. As a result, judges were forced to hand out softer sentences.
Gang and gun enhancements were eventually added to the Nishita case to ensure the suspects would end up behind bars for the rest of their lives if convicted — but only after Virginia said she made pleas to Gov. Gavin Newsom, state Attorney General Rob Bonta, and Rep. Eric Swalwell.
Many Oaklanders feel crime was exacerbated when Thao kicked off her term by sacking the popular police chief LeRonne Armstrong in February 2023, then took more than a year to hire a replacement.
But it wasn’t just crime causing grievances. Thao’s administration missed a deadline to apply for a state grant worth $15 million and intended to provide much-needed help fighting retail theft. Further ruffling feathers, after 57 years in the city the Oakland As baseball team left for Las Vegas under Thao’s watch when the team failed to strike a deal to replace the dilapidated Oakland Coliseum — the sewage-infested laughingstock venue of the baseball world.
And in June, Thao’s home was raided by the FBI as part of a wider investigation into a business-magnate family that donated to her campaign. Thao has not been charged with a crime and insists she was not the target of the investigation. But for many, that raid was the beginning of the end.
Just two years into the leaders’ terms, its all proven too much for most Oaklanders.
“It’s like, if we can’t get them to do what they’re supposed to do, maybe we can change the law to where it’s required,” Patricia Harris said.
Thao and Price both have until the Dec. 5 vote certification to leave office. Harris remains wary of the recall votes’ results, saying she worries what “damage” might be done in their final days in office.
But others are beginning to hazard optimism about the way forward.
“I’m starting to sense kind of like energy of hope, that we can rebuild the community. Everyone’s happy, with a smile on their face,” Chan said.
“That’s something I haven’t seen for a long, long, long, long time.”