CALmatters Commentary: 3 mayors, 3 defeats in NorCal cities
Last month’s election was unkind to mayors of three closely spaced cities in Northern California.
Stockton’s Michael Tubbs and West Sacramento’s Christopher Cabaldon lost to challengers who came out of nowhere, while Sacramento voters soundly rejected Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s bid to strengthen the power of his office.
If there is a common denominator it is that all three had received acclaim beyond their city limits and may have incurred what one could call a “too big for their britches” backlash.
That’s particularly true of Tubbs, a young first-termer who had received nationwide media attention for his experiment in giving cash stipends to some of Stockton’s poorest residents. Although Stockton is overwhelmingly Democratic in voter registration, Tubbs fell to another young Black man, Kevin Lincoln, a Republican pastor and former Marine.