Friday, September 12, 2014

Oakland Poll: Rebecca Kaplan Whips Jean Quan in Mayoral Election

By Doug Oakley
Staff Writer
Bay Area News Group
doakley@bayareanewsgroup.com

OAKLAND -- Mayoral candidate Rebecca Kaplan would win the race over 14 challengers, handily beating runner-up incumbent Jean Quan if the election were held this month, according to a telephone poll of 400 voters released Wednesday. 

The poll, commissioned by the nonprofit Jobs and Housing Coalition from Sept. 2 to 8, shows Kaplan getting 61 percent of the vote to Quan's 39 percent in a ranked-choice voting scenario. 

Ranked choice comes into play when none of the candidates receives 50 percent of the vote plus one. 

"A lot of people know Kaplan and a lot of people like her as a person and now they need to decide if they like her as a mayor," said Gregory McConnell, president of the Jobs and Housing Coalition. 

The poll's margin of error is a plus or minus 4.9 percentage points. 

He said none of the candidates are saying anything really original or groundbreaking because, in addition to trying to get votes for themselves, they also are trying to get the second and third choices of people voting for other candidates. 

"You are looking to hold on to your base and trying to secure the second-place votes of your opponents, so the strategy is not to say anything with clarity because you don't want to offend anyone," McConnell said. "All 15 of them say we gotta address public safety, and you ask them how and they say 'we'll get to that later.' If you ask them how many cops we should have they will say 800 to 1,000, but when you ask them how they are going to do it, the conversation ends." 

More revealing about Quan is the question asking voters if they would vote for Quan or someone else. Just 16 percent said they would re-elect her and 69 percent said they would replace her. Fifty-seven percent said they disapprove of her job performance and 31 percent said they approve. 

The poll shows that people think Oakland's quality of life has improved a little bit and people are a little less worried about crime, but "nobody gives Quan credit for that. Everybody is running a popularity contest and with Jean Quan, a lot of people don't like her," McConnell said. 

Just 31 percent of those polled said Oakland's quality of life has improved in the past few years, but last year that number was even lower at 16 percent. In an open ended question asking what are the major issues facing Oakland, 63 percent said crime, which is down from 70 percent last year. The economy followed crime with 37 percent and education with 29 percent. 

In general, the poll showed 44 percent of those contacted said Oakland was going in the wrong direction, while 41 percent said it was going in the right direction and 15 percent didn't know. 

Of the five candidates running for City Council in District 2, the poll has Dana King winning with 52 percent of the vote followed by Abel Guillen and Andrew Park, both with 17 percent of the ranked-choice votes. 

In a ranked-choice vote for the three candidates of the District 4 race, the poll predicts Jill Broadhurst winning with 52 percent of the vote over Annie Campbell Washington, who gets 37 percent of the vote. 


And in the District 6 election, Desley Brooks takes the seat with 57 percent of the vote over runner-up Shereda Nosakhare who gets 22 percent in a ranked-choice scenario. 

1 comment:

  1. This is being posted by Nicholas J. Vigilante of Oakland. In my opinion, Ms. Broadhurst’s recent misuse of the Sierra Club logo on her campaign literature reflects an integrity problem on her part. This is not the first time that Ms. Broadhurst has done something like this, and it’s important for the voters to know about it before they cast their votes.

    Ms. Broadhurst is responsible for the same deceptive thing on an April Montclair Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) mailer sent to everyone in Montclair, and on her website when she claimed to be “the founding member” of the Montclair NCPC. She was forced by Nick Vigilante (me), one of two actual founders, to change her website. Now, Ms. Broadhurst’s website reads “a founding member.” This is still somewhat misleading because she was not involved in the beginning efforts to form the Montclair NCPC in 2002 and before she was elected to the inaugural NCPC Board in May 2003.

    The mailer I am referring to above was paid for by donations from Montclair residents collected by the Montclair NCPC. This money is suppose to be used for non-partisan activities such as safety and community betterment. If you examine the mailer, you will ask yourself why on Earth would they give Ms. Broadhurst so much coverage on this mailer which promotes raising 60K in donations for a mural? This is not what an NCPC is used for – soft political campaigning?

    As you know, Oakland has high rates of crime and fire and earthquake safety risk factors. Those problems should be given priority consideration by NCPCs. The Montclair NCPC is attempting to raise 60K for a mural !!! Ms. Broadhurst is Chair of the Montclair NCPC and she is responsible for what that NCPC does. The emphasis on a mural is misguided and it demonstrates a lack of leadership and good judgment on her part. The money this NCPC is raising could have been raised for renewal and improvement of the expiring Wildfire Prevention and Assessment District, or to help fund a new full-time Police Officer position for Oakland or even Montclair, or to promote other worthy and necessary safety innitiatives, etc... Do you want to vote for someone who does not demonstrate leadership in dealing with the real problems affecting Oakland?

    ReplyDelete