Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg supports a mayoral candidate but hasn’t endorsed them. Why?
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Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg supports a mayoral candidate but hasn’t endorsed them. Why?
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Five months after Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg made a hefty donation to Assemblyman Kevin McCarty’s mayoral campaign, he still hasn’t endorsed him. But he does support him, his team told The Sacramento Bee.
Steinberg’s campaign on March 22 donated $4,050 to Assemblyman Kevin McCarty’s campaign for mayor over the more liberal Flojuane Cofer, city documents show.
The donation was public on a city web page, but was made 17 days after the primary election, in the slow period before the general election donations ramp up. Asked by The Bee about the donation, Steinberg confirmed he’s supporting McCarty.
“I support Kevin,” Steinberg said in a statement Tuesday. “He’s a longtime friend and has the experience and values needed to be a great mayor.”
Steinberg’s team declined to answer a question about why he did not publicly announce his support or why he’s not calling it an endorsement.
As of Tuesday afternoon there has been no press release, or social media post, and the mayor’s name has not been added to McCarty’s long list of endorsements on his campaign website. In contrast, on Aug. 1, McCarty’s campaign announced on X the endorsement of District Attorney Thien Ho, who’s suing the city seeking more criminal citations for the homeless.
McCarty’s campaign referred comment for this story to Steinberg’s office.
Steinberg’s popularity among Sacramentans is unknown. The former Senate pro tem sailed to re-election in 2020, but he didn’t have a serious challenger. Then in 2022 voters rejected his ballot measure to change the city government structure to give mayors more power.
When Steinberg was elected mayor in 2016, his popularity was high. But since then, the public perception is that the homeless crisis has drastically worsened. A new count shows that although Sacramento homelessness decreased from 2020 to 2022, hitting about 6,600, it’s still higher than it was in 2019.
Steinberg and McCarty both served on the council before serving in the state Legislature. If McCarty wins, he will be following Steinberg’s path to come back to the council dais as mayor.
Unlike longtime politicians McCarty and Steinberg, Cofer and Steinberg have had few public interactions. But in June 2020, in the wake of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, Cofer famously blasted Steinberg during a meeting saying his proposals for police reform did not go far enough.
Steinberg gave another big hint for his pick. On primary election night March 5, Steinberg attended McCarty’s party at the Green Room in East Sacramento. He did not attend Cofer’s party.
Similar cash on hand
Campaign documents filed this week show both Cofer and McCarty have a similar amount of cash on hand — $103,000 and $183,000, respectively. Those are relatively low amounts, but don’t account for independent expenditure committees created to support and oppose the candidates.
The California Apartment Association, typically a big player in local elections, appears to have flipped from opposing McCarty to supporting. On Feb. 16, ahead of the primary, the association donated $15,000 to an independent expenditure committee opposing McCarty for mayor. Then June 26 it donated $13,550 to McCarty’s campaign.
Cofer has said she wants to make a significant change to the city’s rent control ordinance to reduce the amount landlords are allowed to raise the rent each year, currently at 10%. The apartment association opposed the creation of the ordinance and would oppose lowering the threshold.
Cofer on March 20 received a donation from the Council on American Islamic-Relations and on June 30 from Sacramento Democrats for Justice in Palestine, the new filings show.
During the primary, Cofer and McCarty advanced to the general election, while former Councilman Steve Hansen and former state Sen. Richard Pan, the more moderate candidates, did not.
The general election will be held Nov. 5. The new mayor’s term will begin in December.
This story was originally published August 6, 2024 at 3:03 PM.
