Former Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) was projected to win a special election to become the next mayor of Oakland, according to Decision Desk HQ, in what became a closer-than-expected race amid growing voter dissatisfaction over the direction of the city.

Lee won the nonpartisan ranked-choice election over a field of more than a half dozen candidates, with the most prominent being former City Council member Loren Taylor, who was the runner-up to now-former Mayor Sheng Thao (D) in the 2022 mayoral race and emerged as this election's dark-horse contender.

Taylor had the initial lead after the first batch of votes were tallied Tuesday night with 48.2 percent of the vote, about 1,200 votes ahead of Lee, who had 45.7 percent.

But after more than 40,000 additional mail-in ballots yet to be counted were tallied and announced Friday, Lee went ahead of Taylor by about 5 points, or nearly 5,000 votes. That was just enough to win a majority in the initial round of vote counting before any additional rounds of tallying in the ranked choice system need to be conducted.

Oakland has been without a permanent mayor since November, when Thao was recalled from office in a first for the city with more than 60........

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