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City of Oakland · Statewide General Election

Mayor of Oakland

Draft candidate list — early preview until the state’s official list publishes on August 27, 2026.

This is one contest. Enter your address to see every race on your November ballot, and keep track of your picks.

On the ballot

This person is Oakland's chief executive: the budget, police and fire leadership, housing and homelessness policy.

Four candidates are on the ranked-choice ballot for a full four-year term: incumbent Barbara Lee, who won the 2025 special election after a recall removed her predecessor, plus Brenda F. Grisham, Mindy Ruth Pechenuk and Julius Robinson. The Oaklandside notes the field is smaller than Oakland's recent mayoral races.

The mayor is Oakland's chief executive: proposing the budget, appointing department leadership including police and fire, and setting the administration's direction on homelessness, housing and public safety. A four-year term.

Lee has held the office for about a year and a half of an unexpired term, so this is the first full-term verdict on her tenure. The challengers offer three different arguments against continuing it — a public-safety organizer, a hard-line policing platform, and a candidacy with no public record to weigh. Ranked-choice voting lets you rank as many as you have views on.

Barbara Lee

The incumbent, previously a longtime East Bay member of Congress and before that a state Assembly member. Voters chose her in the 2025 special election and she is seeking a full term. Her case, per both outlets, is that her administration balanced the city budget, reduced crime, and made progress on homelessness and illegal dumping.

Strengths

Decades of federal legislative experience and a citywide mandate from the 2025 special election, now with a year and a half in the office.

Trade-offs

The claims her campaign runs on — a unified city, falling crime — are her administration's own characterizations of its record, not independent findings.

Keep in mind

She inherited a city mid-crisis after a recall, so the fair question is direction rather than destination: judge the trajectory of the problems she names against the year and a half she has had.

Brenda F. Grisham

An East Oakland business owner and longtime public-safety advocate who led the successful recall campaign against the Alameda County District Attorney. Her platform promises work with local, state and federal partners on stricter gun-control measures and investment in community violence-intervention programs (per the Oaklandside).

Strengths

Proven citywide organizing — she ran a recall campaign to a win — plus a public-safety platform that pairs gun measures with violence-intervention funding.

Trade-offs

No record in elected office; her demonstrated skill is campaigning and advocacy rather than running a city government.

Keep in mind

Leading a recall builds a coalition against something. This candidacy asks whether that coalition transfers to governing for something — a different test, and the one November actually poses.

Mindy Ruth Pechenuk

An educator and activist, and an adherent of the LaRouche political movement. She ran for mayor in the 2025 special election and for the at-large council seat in 2024, and is a rare registered Republican seeking office in Oakland. Her platform would abolish the police commission and the MACRO response program, hire more police, and launch a local anti-drug campaign (per the Oaklandside).

Strengths

The field's most explicit platform — specific institutions she would abolish and specific policing investments she would make — and repeated willingness to stand for office.

Trade-offs

Two prior campaigns for Oakland office without winning, and no record in elected or appointed city government.

Keep in mind

Her proposals would reverse Oakland's police-accountability structure rather than adjust it; whatever you think of that direction, it is a clearer break with the status quo than anything else on this ballot.

Julius Robinson

On the ballot as a Community Investment Executive — his official ballot designation, per the city clerk's qualified list. Beyond that the record is thin: the Oaklandside reported it could not find information about him, and the Oakland Post located only a KTVU interview during the 2024 mayoral recall, in which he said Oaklanders want to come together as a community but lack infrastructure and leadership.

Strengths

An official ballot designation as a community investment executive, plus one recorded public comment on Oakland's need for cohesion and leadership.

Trade-offs

No campaign, platform or documented civic record beyond that — the least for a voter to weigh of anyone in this race.

Keep in mind

The thinness is itself sourced: two newsrooms publishing the clerk's list both reported finding almost nothing. If a campaign surfaces, the weekly refresh catches it.

Financial info

Mindy Ruth Pechenuk

$14,498raised
  • Small donors$1,90714%
  • Individuals$12,13186%

Barbara Lee

$278,922raised
  • Small donors$16,7846%
  • Individuals$223,29982%
  • PACs & committees$24,2009%
  • Businesses & other orgs$9,1003%

Julius Robinson has no campaign committee with filings on record with the Oakland Public Ethics Commission for this race.

Brenda F. Grisham has no campaign committee with filings on record with the Oakland Public Ethics Commission for this race.

Figures are CA Form 460 filings through 2026-06-30, per the Oakland Public Ethics Commission's e-filed transaction exports, retrieved 2026-08-22.

Source review: Very strong (93/100) · 5 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context.

Last updated August 22, 2026.