Reflections on Sacramento's historic mayoral race

Despite losing by just one point, Dr. Flojaune Cofer had support from nearly 60% of Democrats, while 90% of Republicans backed Kevin McCarty. Both candidates were registered Democrats.

Sacramento mayoral candidates Dr. Flojaune Cofer and Kevin McCarty

What an absolute joy it has been to watch the pundits consistently get the Sacramento mayoral race wrong over the last 20 months.

It started in April 2023, when America’s Landlord Steve Maviglio dismissed progressive candidate Dr. Flo Cofer’s announcement to run, saying “with no elected or campaign experience, she’d be a long shot,” and ended in a neck-and-neck general election that prompted political data guru Paul Mitchell to admit that he’d not expected Flo to even breach 40% of the vote (she ended up with 49.5%).

And while Team Flo’s staff (disclosure: I was the communications director in the primary) and volunteers are reflecting on what might have been with such a razor-thin margin, they’re also immensely proud of how far the movement has come in Sacramento.

Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, on the other hand, does not seem happy, despite eking out a victory with 50.5% of the vote. It’s no secret why. Here’s what Senator Angelique Ashby said last week in Politico:

“It is not exactly a screaming mandate from the people of Sacramento for their next mayor. […] I would think, coming through the door, that would be an indication to Kevin McCarty that there are a significant number of people in the city that he’s going to need to spend some time reaching out to, listening to, making sure they feel included in what happens in the next four years in Sacramento.”

That half of Sacramento voters who didn’t choose McCarty? It’s the Democratic base.

About a week before election day, Capitol Weekly conducted a poll to see where voters were landing on the mayoral race. The final outcome landed quite close to the actual result (McCarty won by just one point, while the poll had him up by two), so I feel fairly comfortable with these breakdowns after the fact. Here’s where respondents landed:

• Nearly 60% of DEMOCRATS supported Dr. Flo

• A majority (53%) of INDEPENDENTS supported Dr. Flo

• Fully 90% of REPUBLICANS backed Kevin McCarty

  

  Source: Capitol Weekly/CA 120 poll

You read that right. The man once vaunted as *the* progressive in Sacramento politics is walking into City Hall thanks to a coalition of Trump voters, corporate interests and political insiders, while the vast majority of Democratic voters in the city rejected him.

Dr. Flo’s campaign leveled a light on Kevin McCarty, and it showed Democrats just how low he was willing to go to win. He took money from Big Real Estate, corporate landlords, cops and prison guards. He stayed silent as his supporter groups sent virulently racist and sexist mailers to potential voters. He lied constantly about Flo’s platform.

It was a disgusting display, by many Democrats’ accounts. And now Kevin has to try and win them back over the next four years.

I don’t think this will happen, and not just because his first task as mayor will be to make the wildly unpopular move to rehire City Manager Howard Chan, whose paychecks siphon some $600,000 from city coffers each year (the most of any city manager in California).

Simply put, McCarty’s not going to improve material conditions for Sacramentans over the next four years, and that’s going to create a LOT of opportunities for the Left to build against him.

Because McCarty painted himself into a corner by begging Big Real Estate, the landlord lobby and cops to save his campaign, he’s beholden to them now. That makes him no different than any other local status quo politician from the last 20 years who has legislated to make their rich donors richer, and not to improve the lives of workers.

In this mayoral election postmortem, I’d like to examine a few things:

• Contributing factors to the race

• Why the Left should be incredibly proud of this result

• How the Left is leveraging this momentum moving forward

It was a good election for the Trump-McCarty voter this year in Sacramento. But building a movement is a marathon, not a sprint.

We’ve got a long four years ahead in holding Mayor-elect McCarty accountable, both on and off the dais (I’m sure a few stories will come out of the woodwork on the man himself, if there is any credence to capitol staffer chisme… from what I hear, he didn’t just use his desk in the Assembly for writing legislation).

But for now, let’s take a look at where things have landed this election: