AC Transit board Director Jovanka Beckles has secured a second-place finish in the primary for the state Senate seat representing Berkeley and Oakland, setting up a race this November between her and Mayor Jesse Arreguín to replace termed-out Sen. Nancy Skinner.
The former Richmond councilmember advanced out of the crowded primary field despite raising and spending far less than the four other Democratic candidates in an expensive and hard-fought campaign.
“It was greater than me — it was about a movement, and my corporate-free message really resonated with the voters,” Beckles said in an interview. “They see the correlation between electing corporate-free candidates and being able to finally get the resources we need as human beings and community members.”
Beckles trailed Oakland Councilmember Dan Kalb in early results, but overtook him last week and steadily grew her lead as more ballots were counted. The latest results now show Beckles ahead of Kalb by more than 5,000 votes, with nearly all ballots counted, according to the Associated Press.
Arreguín has led the field by a comfortable margin throughout the count, holding 32.1% of votes to Beckles’ 17.7% in the latest results. After raising the most money of any candidate in the primary, campaign finance records indicate Arreguín will enter the general election with a major money advantage — he had just over $200,000 in cash on hand as of Feb. 17, the most recent reporting deadline, while Beckles had less than $4,000 in the bank.
State Senate District 7, which Skinner has represented since 2016, covers cities along the East Bay shoreline from Crockett to Oakland’s southern border with San Leandro.
Much of the spending in the primary — which as of February was the most expensive legislative race in the state, according to the San Jose Mercury News — was focused on California Labor Federation President Kathryn Lybarger. An influential figure in state politics seeking her first elected office in this campaign, Lybarger was running fourth in the latest election results.
Unions backing Lybarger poured millions of dollars into independent expenditure committees that supported her campaign. Meanwhile business groups cut similarly hefty checks to fund attack ads opposing her and boosting other candidates; much of that outside money went in support of Arreguín, though campaign finance records show one business-backed group spent about $120,000 Beckles’ behalf, possibly in an effort to woo supporters toward her and away from Lybarger.
Competing for support in a progressive district
Both Arreguín and Beckles pitch themselves to voters as strong progressives, which one might expect from candidates running to represent this deep-blue slice of the Bay Area.
But asked in interviews Friday about the campaign to come, each highlighted their differences on issues that divide progressive voters, such as housing.
While both support efforts to build more affordable homes, Beckles dismisses the idea that the Bay Area should allow more market-rate housing, which she argues won’t make it easier for less-wealthy residents to afford a place to live. Arreguín has come to embrace projects that add supply at the higher end of the market, saying they are necessary to ease the shortage of housing that drives the region’s affordability crisis.
Beckles criticized Arreguín for drawing support from industry groups representing landlords, developers and realtors, among others.
“I will always put community first, I will always put people over profit,” Beckles said. “This is going to be clearly a race between a corporate-free candidate and a corporate-funded candidate.”
Arreguín countered by pointing to his support from unions in the building trades, and said he has advanced both “pro-tenant and pro-housing policies” in Berkeley.
“I have a track record of not just being a strong progressive advocate, but getting things done,” Arreguín said. “My approach to leadership is to be progressive and to be pragmatic.”
The candidates have also differed in how they’re responding to the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. Arreguín has opposed a push for Berkeley to pass a resolution calling for a cease-fire in the conflict, while Beckles has highlighted her support for a cease-fire and attended a pro-Palestinian protest at a Berkeley City Council meeting last December.
