It’s likely that Oakland Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan will face off in November against the second-place candidate so far, former Alameda City Councilmember Lena Tam.
Votes are still being tallied, but in, two leaders in the race are preparing for the November runoff.
Tam took just over 30% of the vote, as of the Friday evening tally. Behind her was former Oakland Unified school board member and youth nonprofit director David Kakishiba and former San Leandro Councilmember Surlene Grant. The candidates hail from different parts of the district and have mostly drawn their support from those areas, according to campaign finance records and the information published so far about the election’s results. District 3 includes portions of Oakland — Jack London Square, Chinatown and parts of downtown and East Oakland — as well as Alameda, San Leandro and San Lorenzo.
Tam was the top vote-getter in most of the city of Alameda, the election data thus far shows. Tam served on the Alameda City Council from 2006 to 2014 and was an Alameda County planning commissioner before then. Tam was endorsed by the Asian Pacific American Democratic Caucus of Alameda County, as well as a number of local elected officials, including Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and Dave Brown — Chan’s former chief of staff and current supervisor.
Surlene Grant, a former San Leandro council member, was endorsed by a number of San Leandro elected officials, as well as groups like Black Women Organized for Political Action, Environmental Justice Leagueand the South Alameda County Young Democrats. Grant carried some parts of San Leandro, but it ultimately wasn’t enough to get ahead of the other three candidates.