2002 Oakland mayoral election

Former Oakland City Council member Wilson Riles Jr., who had served on the City Council from 1979 until 1992, challenged incumbent first-term mayor Jerry Brown.^[1][2]

Brown ran a low-profile campaign.^[3]

Brown had $200,000 in campaign funds, more than twice what Riles had.^[3]

While the previous election had attracted national media attention, very little media coverage was paid to the 2002 race.^[4]

A chief critique of Brown made by Riles was that the incumbent mayor was too cozy with downtown developers.^[1]

Riles, ultimately, performed stronger than had been anticipated by many.^[3]

Brown was also campaigning in support of ballot measure that would permanently extend 1998's Measure X, which had implemented a six-year period in which Oakland would be run under the strong mayor form of governance. Measure X's change from a weak mayor to strong mayor form of governance would expire during the coming mayoral term. However, the measure to permanently extend Measure X ultimately failed in 2002.^[5] A similar measure which permanently extended the Measure X changes, however, would successfully be approved by voters in 2004, thus permentantly keeping they changes made by Measure X.^[5]