I know there are more votes yet to be counted. However, my gut feeling is that Loren Taylor may end up winning the election.
The problem is, while Taylor's margin of lead over Barbara Lee has dropped from 2.5% in the First RCV Round to 2.4% in the 9th RCV Round, his overall voting percentage during the time…
I know there are more votes yet to be counted. However, my gut feeling is that Loren Taylor may end up winning the election.
The problem is, while Taylor's margin of lead over Barbara Lee has dropped from 2.5% in the First RCV Round to 2.4% in the 9th RCV Round, his overall voting percentage during the time has increased 3% from 48.2% to 51.2%.
Back in the 2022 Mayoral Election, Taylor did lead Sheng Thao by 1.28 in the first RCV round. However, in the 7th RCV round Thao ended up overtaking Taylor by 0.6% points with a narrow lead of 50.3% points vs. Taylor who had 49.7% of the votes at the time. Such movement has not happened this time around and turnout is substantially lower than it was in 2022.
Taylor currently leads with 24,347 votes compared to back in 2022 when he was barely trailing Sheng Thao with 56,529 votes cast for him at the time of the 9th RCV Round. Unless the additional votes yet to be counted are going to make a substantial difference for both Taylor and Lee, I don't see how there's going to be much movement in this election.
Maybe there's something I'm missing but right now, I don't see how the math is leaning in Lee's direction.
The Registrar of Voters estimates that there are about 42K votes still to be counted, making turnout about 36%. That would mean that only about 55% of the votes are currently counted. There's a long way to go. Waiting for Friday.
Ok thanks for the information. I’m mainly pointing out that compared to 2022, it’s different all of a sudden that in the 9th round of RCV that Lee hasn’t gotten the momentum that Sheng Thao did in the election.
But we shall see. The race should go either way in the end and I may end up being surprised.
I consider it too close to call with (1) so many votes outstanding; and (2) a real likelihood that Lee's supporters voted later in the process, making the remaining votes more likely to lean toward her.
I think 2022 was different than 2025 because there were so many credible candidates. Note that in 2022, even after five rounds of RCV, Thao and Taylor only had 67% combined. This year, Taylor and Lee have 94% in the first round.
Perhaps I'm still trying to understand the RCV system better but I find it unusual that all of these 40,000+ outstanding ballots have yet to be counted in this special election race. Unless I'm mistaken, the 2022 Mayoral Election didn't have this situation after Round 9 of RCV.
Is this because of this being a special election? Or did those casting these 40,000+ ballots decide to mail-in their ballots this time so as to influence the race more than it had been done in the past?
Every election has the count drawn out because valid ballots are accepted up to a week after election day so long as they were mailed by election day (and Alameda is very slow).
I looked back for news stories from 2022 and saw that the election was on 11/8, Thao declared victory on 11/21 and Taylor conceded on 11/22 so the final RC tabulation apparently came out on 11/21, 13 days after election day.
Oakland Mayoral Special Election
I know there are more votes yet to be counted. However, my gut feeling is that Loren Taylor may end up winning the election.
The problem is, while Taylor's margin of lead over Barbara Lee has dropped from 2.5% in the First RCV Round to 2.4% in the 9th RCV Round, his overall voting percentage during the time has increased 3% from 48.2% to 51.2%.
Back in the 2022 Mayoral Election, Taylor did lead Sheng Thao by 1.28 in the first RCV round. However, in the 7th RCV round Thao ended up overtaking Taylor by 0.6% points with a narrow lead of 50.3% points vs. Taylor who had 49.7% of the votes at the time. Such movement has not happened this time around and turnout is substantially lower than it was in 2022.
Taylor currently leads with 24,347 votes compared to back in 2022 when he was barely trailing Sheng Thao with 56,529 votes cast for him at the time of the 9th RCV Round. Unless the additional votes yet to be counted are going to make a substantial difference for both Taylor and Lee, I don't see how there's going to be much movement in this election.
Maybe there's something I'm missing but right now, I don't see how the math is leaning in Lee's direction.
2022 Mayoral Election
https://www.alamedacountyca.gov/rovresults/rcv/248/rcvresults.htm?race=Oakland%2F001-Mayor
2025 Mayoral Special Election
https://alamedacountyca.gov/rovresults/rcv/257/rcvresults.htm?race=Oakland%2F001-Mayor
Thanks for this update.
The Registrar of Voters estimates that there are about 42K votes still to be counted, making turnout about 36%. That would mean that only about 55% of the votes are currently counted. There's a long way to go. Waiting for Friday.
Ok thanks for the information. I’m mainly pointing out that compared to 2022, it’s different all of a sudden that in the 9th round of RCV that Lee hasn’t gotten the momentum that Sheng Thao did in the election.
But we shall see. The race should go either way in the end and I may end up being surprised.
I consider it too close to call with (1) so many votes outstanding; and (2) a real likelihood that Lee's supporters voted later in the process, making the remaining votes more likely to lean toward her.
I think 2022 was different than 2025 because there were so many credible candidates. Note that in 2022, even after five rounds of RCV, Thao and Taylor only had 67% combined. This year, Taylor and Lee have 94% in the first round.
Ok, that's helpful to know.
Perhaps I'm still trying to understand the RCV system better but I find it unusual that all of these 40,000+ outstanding ballots have yet to be counted in this special election race. Unless I'm mistaken, the 2022 Mayoral Election didn't have this situation after Round 9 of RCV.
Is this because of this being a special election? Or did those casting these 40,000+ ballots decide to mail-in their ballots this time so as to influence the race more than it had been done in the past?
Every election has the count drawn out because valid ballots are accepted up to a week after election day so long as they were mailed by election day (and Alameda is very slow).
I looked back for news stories from 2022 and saw that the election was on 11/8, Thao declared victory on 11/21 and Taylor conceded on 11/22 so the final RC tabulation apparently came out on 11/21, 13 days after election day.
Well then, we shall have to wait and see how things play out in the additional votes that are being counted.