Former Alameda councilmember Malia Vella held an early lead in the city's mayoral race on Wednesday, with preliminary results showing her ahead of two sitting councilmembers, Tracy Jensen and Tony Daysog, in a contest to replace a termed-out incumbent. The count is far from final, but the early numbers offer the first real signal of where Alameda voters are leaning in a race that will determine who succeeds Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft.
Vella pulled in 6,897 votes in early returns, compared with 4,730 for Jensen and 4,247 for Daysog, according to Patch. A snapshot from Alameda County's election results page showed a last update of 11:11 p.m. Tuesday, underscoring that the tally was still moving as ballots continued to be processed. Ezzy Ashcraft, the outgoing mayor, is termed out of office, leaving her seat open for the first time in years, per Local News Matters.
Vella, who served two terms on the Alameda City Council from 2016 to 2024, now works in education advising, according to the outlet's reporting. She previously worked as a deputy superintendent at the California Department of Education, and at a September candidate forum covered by the Alameda Post, she pitched herself as someone who could bring that background to City Hall. “As an education executive, I have the professional experience to lead innovation and change,” she said, according to Local News Matters. She also described herself in distinctly local terms: “As a native Alamedan with deep roots here, I'm committed to preserving what's best about Alameda while moving us toward a vibrant future.”
A Crowded Field With Deep City Council Roots
Jensen, currently a sitting councilmember, was elected to the council in 2022 after a career that included serving as Oakland's senior services administrator and sitting on the boards of the Alameda Unified School District and the Alameda Health Care District, per the same Local News Matters report. She has framed her mayoral priorities around growth tempered by caution, saying her focus would be on “responsible development, living-wage jobs, emergency preparedness and environmental resiliency.”
Daysog, the third candidate and also a current councilmember, has one of the longest track records in city politics among the three. He was first appointed to the council in 1996 and has served as a councilmember in 22 of the 30 years since, according to the outlet's reporting. He was elected again in 2018 and reelected in 2022. Daysog has described his top priority, if elected mayor, as ending the city's police hiring freeze, a position the Alameda Post also noted he raised at the Sept. 26 candidate forum, where Vella countered by highlighting housing, climate sustainability and transportation needs.
Measure L And The Infrastructure Divide
That same forum, which drew around 200 community members to Mastick Senior Center, became a venue for the candidates to spell out sharply different views on Measure L, a proposed $300 million bond aimed at closing a widening gap in funding for the city's infrastructure projects, according to the Alameda Post's coverage. Vella told attendees that Alameda's unfunded infrastructure needs had ballooned from roughly $300 million to $800 million, a figure she cited to argue for urgent action.
Jensen and Vella have both voiced support for the bond measure, while Daysog opposes it as written, the Alameda Post reported in a separate piece examining the candidates' positions on infrastructure and development. Daysog has said sea-level rise is the city's biggest concern, and that his opposition to Measure L stems from the fact that it does not commit funding toward specific climate-resiliency projects. Vella, for her part, has named affordability and climate change as the two main issues facing Alameda today, according to Local News Matters.
Shared Concerns, Different Fixes
Despite their disagreements over the bond, all three candidates told the Alameda Post they consider climate change among the greatest challenges facing Alamedans right now. Where they diverge is on housing and development: Jensen has pointed to fewer than 500 housing units built during the first four years of a state-mandated timeframe, attributing the slow pace to economic conditions and developers lacking resources, per the outlet's reporting.
With early results still being counted as of Tuesday night, the outcome of Alameda's mayoral race — and the fate of Measure L — remained unsettled. Vella's lead in preliminary returns gives her a head start, but the final composition of Alameda's next City Hall, and who will steer the city's infrastructure and climate response in the years ahead, is still being determined.
