With the Oakland mayoral race in its final days, candidates Sheng Thao and Ignacio De La Fuente have received far greater financial backing than fellow frontrunners Loren Taylor and Treva Reid.
OAKLAND –Voters here have a choice of 10 candidates for mayor on their November ballot, but by most measures, the race comes to four: Ignacio De La Fuente, Treva Reid, Loren Taylor and Sheng Thao, all current or former City Council members with strong name recognition and ample contributions to fuel their campaigns.
Independent expenditure committees supporting Thao have spent at least $701,000 this year – much of it produced by “Working Families for a Better Oakland,” a committee that’s largely backed by labor unions. De La Fuente’s most significant source of outside spending is a committee – named “Californians for Safer Streets” – primarily backed by Jonathan Brooks of the Los Angeles-based investment firm, JMB Capital, which would operate the coal terminal. Brooks has contributed $550,000 to the committee, almost all of it in the past week alone. The committee has raised $691,000 this calendar year.
But the longtime political veteran offers no comment on the pushback: “I will not get bullied into taking positions for political reasons,” he said.As Taylor and Reid formally join forces in the late stages of election season, the two have gone to great lengths to distance themselves politically from Thao.