New Oakland Mayoral Poll: Kaplan Leads, Schaaf 2nd, Quan 3rd

Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan continues to hold the lead in the race for Oakland mayor, and fellow Councilwoman Libby Schaaf has moved into second place, according to the latest poll from the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

That same poll released Wednesday, puts incumbent Mayor Jean Quan in third place despite respondents saying the city's on the right track.

“People realize that it's more peaceful and they think this city's doing well, they just don't associate it with me, unfortunately," Quan said at a policy roundtable Wednesday night. "If you blame me for everything that's gone wrong in the last 10 years, you have to give me some credit for the things that are going very right."

Fourteen candidates are vying to unseat Quan, including Port Commissioner Bryan Parker, City Auditor Courtney Ruby, attorney (and former Quan ally) Dan Siegel and San Francisco State Professor Joe Tuman. Oakland voters will use ranked-choice voting to elect the mayor, as well as the auditor, council members and school board members. But confusion or even suspicion of the system remains. KQED's Mina Kim spoke with reporter Cy Musiker, who is covering the Oakland mayoral race.

Mina Kim: So how have ranked choice elections played out since the system first took effect in San Francisco in 2004?

Cy Musiker: There's been 84 elections in the Bay Area since the system first took effect. And here’s a surprising stat: Corey Cook of the University of San Francisco found that in almost two-thirds of those elections, one candidate got more than 50 percent of the first-choice votes without any fussing with second- and third-place votes; in other words, without any instant runoff needed. And when election officials had to tabulate the second and third choices, most of the time, the candidate in first place at the start increased his or her lead in each round of counting.

According to Cook, a candidate has surged from behind in just five ranked-choice elections. So that all suggests that the results in ranked-choice voting aren’t usually very controversial at all, and the outcomes aren’t radically different from an election in which voters mark just one candidate on their ballots.

Kim: In Oakland in 2010, Jean Quan won the mayoral race by coming from behind.

Musiker: Quan was very smart about ranked choice voting, building alliances with other candidates against the frontrunner that year, former state Senator Don Perata. That reveals one of the few real problems with ranked choice -- whether a candidate’s victory is viewed as legitimate when he or she comes from behind to win. One suggested improvement is continuing the count until all votes are exhausted, as opposed to stopping after one candidate hits 50 percent plus one.

Kim: How is ranked choice affecting the candidates' campaigns this year?

Musiker: One of the selling points for ranked choice is that it reduces highly partisan, negative campaigns. That seems to be true. Councilwoman Libby Schaaf's campaign manager, Peggy Moore, said ranked choice means every rival is “a friend." If she’s going door to door in a neighborhood and sees a rival’s lawn sign in front of someone’s home, Moore says there’s still an opportunity to knock on that door and ask residents to consider her candidate for vote two or three.

KQED's Adam Grossberg contributed to this report.