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Nine people are on the ballot in today's special mayoral election in Oakland, California. The city's struggles include a looming budget deficit, a recalled mayor indicted on bribery charges and a feeling among many residents that crime is out of control. And the face-off between two front-runners - a former congresswoman and a former city council member - highlights how tech money is influencing politics in cities where Democrats are in the majority. NPR's Sandhya Dirks reports.
SANDHYA DIRKS, BYLINE: Earlier this month, in all 50 states, people gathered at over 1,300 different hands-off protests. In Oakland, speakers voiced opposition to what they see as authoritarianism and tech-fueled oligarchy. One of the speakers was current mayoral candidate, longtime former U.S. congresswoman Barbara Lee.
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BARBARA LEE: You have come up and come out today to show this Trump administration that we here in Oakland are saying, hands off of our great city. Hands off of our democracy.
DIRKS: Many progressives, like Pastor Michael McBride, who support Lee, say some of the tech money visible in the national GOP is also reshaping Democratic politics in blue cities.
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MICHAEL MCBRIDE: How many of you can say that Oakland is not for sale?
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Yeah.
MCBRIDE: Come on, say that with me - Oakland is not for sale. Say it again.
DIRKS: McBride is talking about a network of independent political committees supporting Lee's closest opponent, Loren Taylor. On the surface, both Lee and Taylor seem similar - both Black Oakland Democrats. While a lot of Lee's financial support is coming from unions, Taylor, who is slightly outspending Lee, has support from PACs backed by tech money, like from San Francisco's Max Hodak. He co-founded Neuralink with Elon Musk in 2016, but he split with Musk a few years back. Here's Jake Grumbach, a political scientist at Berkeley who studies money in politics.
JAKE GRUMBACH: We've seen the creation of new organizations, mostly financed by tech and venture capital money. This makes up a sort of conservative wing of the Democratic Party in some blue cities.
DIRKS: Grumbach says housing issues, public safety and a perception of rising crime have become central narratives, pushing some Democrats away from criminal justice reform and civil rights issues. On a Saturday morning in the Oakland Hills, Loren Taylor rallies volunteers before they go out to knock on doors.
LOREN TAYLOR: So this is truly a grassroots, Oakland-driven campaign, Oakland-funded campaign.
DIRKS: Taylor calls himself a pragmatic progressive. Recently, California Governor Gavin Newsom has come out saying that Democrats went too far on issues like trans rights. I asked Taylor if he agrees.
TAYLOR: I do think it has some truth to it.
DIRKS: He says it's not that Democrats should reverse course, but rather put those issues in perspective.
TAYLOR: These areas that, while they might make us feel good, aren't actually going to improve everyday life. They aren't actually going to keep us safe.
DIRKS: Empower Oakland is another PAC that supports Taylor. It's run by Gagan Biyani. Biyani is a Bay Area native who also made his money in tech.
GAGAN BIYANI: It's just like, oh, they're tech - they're bad. It's like, you know, it's just - it's not that different from being, you know, racist or sexist or anything else. You are picking a group of people and making wide-sweeping comments about them without ever getting to know the person in front of you.
DIRKS: Like Taylor, Biyani also calls himself a pragmatic progressive. But Pastor Michael McBride says Taylor is no such thing.
MCBRIDE: There is no way he can claim to be progressive when compared to Barbara Lee. Pragmatic progressives in the Bay Area are Trump-lite supporters.
DIRKS: Taylor strongly denies any support for Trump or Republicans, but the battle for mayor of Oakland has also become a battle over who gets to define what it means to be a progressive and a Democrat.
In Oakland, Sandhya Dirks, NPR News.
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