Alameda County District 5 constituents inched closer to learning who their new supervisor will be after a ballot drop showing Oakland city council President Nikki Fortunato Bas taking a 106-vote lead over Emeryville councilmember John Bauters on Friday.
The latest ballot drop from the Alameda County Registrar of Voters showed Bas with 50.04% of the vote to Bauters’ 49.96%, a remarkably tight race that will result in new leadership for the first time in more than a generation for District 5 after Supervisor Keith Carson announced he would not be seeking re-election last year. Bauters had held a slight lead in the race in past ballot drops.
The remarkably tight race will be historic regardless of the winner. If victorious, Bauters would become the first gay supervisor in Alameda County history, while Bas would be part of the first female majority on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.
The race has focused largely on the competing strategies to address the district’s most pressing concerns of homelessness, public safety and unaffordable housing. Bas has pushed for a holistic approach that seeks to use early intervention programs to prevent residents from falling into homelessness or crime, saying that these efforts have found success in Oakland.
“Nothing stops a bullet like a job, and that has always stuck with me,” Bas told the Bay Area News Group leading up to the election. “A lot of my work prior to becoming an elected official has focused on social justice issues and looking at economic opportunity as the foundation of providing a safe and vibrant community.”
Bauters also hopes to bring his pragmatic progressive approach in Emeryville to the Board of Supervisors’ dais. Also known as “America’s Bike Mayor,” Bauters emphasized his efforts to reduce homelessness in Emeryville by 79% since 2019 through the passage of housing bonds and the creation of permanently affordable housing.
“Housing security is a huge component of my personal identity, my advocacy and my professional career, and it’s one of the reasons I ran for city council — to bring housing opportunities to people, tenant protections,” Bauters said. “The people who want to be a part of Alameda County should have the ability to be included here, and that means having housing opportunities for everybody.”
Bauters bested Bas in campaign funding over the last month of the campaign, spending more than $350,000 between Sept. 22 and Oct. 19 compared to $$224,000 by Bas, according to campaign filings.
It is unclear how many uncounted ballots are left in the county, but the state’s Unprocessed Ballots Reports estimated 187,135 ballots had not been counted as of Friday morning. Alameda County has until Dec. 5 to certify the election.