Overview:
It appear that for the first time two Richmond Progressive Alliance members will be running for mayor.
The RPA endorsed Claudia Jimenez for the seat at a meeting Sunday after having backed incumbent Mayor Eduardo Martinez's previous candidacies.
If Jimenez were to win, a special election would be held to fill her District 6 seat, which she was reelected to in 2024.
This story was updated to reflect the latest developments.
Richmond’s mayoral primary race could see two Richmond Progressive Alliance members vying for the same seat for the first time in the history of the influential political group. District 6 city council member Claudia Jimenez told Richmondside she’s running for the seat held by incumbent Mayor Eduardo Martinez since 2022. She filled out her filing paperwork at the city clerk’s office just after 11 a.m. Wednesday.
The Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) voted Sunday to formally endorse Jimenez as its sole candidate for mayor instead of longtime RPA member and incumbent Martinez. Other candidates who say they’re running for mayor are: Ahmad Anderson, Demnlus Johnson and Mark Wassberg.
In a statement sent to Richmondside Tuesday night, the RPA confirmed the endorsement, saying it’s “excited” to endorse Jimenez.
“We support mayoral candidate Claudia Jimenez because she is the best leader to move the city of Richmond forward,” the statement reads. “Claudia has demonstrated the skills in managing city finances, championing immigrant rights and spearheading the Chevron settlement fund. She has established relationships with residents, labor unions and community organizations. Claudia represents the strength, commitment and working-class leadership our city needs.”
News that Jimenez planned to run swirled on Facebook and at Tuesday’s Richmond City Council meeting. One speaker during open forum referred to the RPA’s endorsement of Jimenez before being cut off by Martinez because of the council’s policy that political races can’t be discussed during meetings.
Martinez told Richmondside Wednesday morning that, “There has been nothing that’s told me I shouldn’t run.”
When asked about the RPA’s statement about the endorsement and how it might affect his reelection campaign strategy, Martinez said he had not seen the statement.
“I haven’t had time to think about it so I’m going to have to figure it out,” he said.
In 2024, Jimenez was reelected to her second term in District 6, which includes the North and East neighborhood and parts of East Richmond.
In an interview with Richmondside earlier this week, Jimenez said that, for years, her constituents have asked her about a mayoral bid. She believes the time is right and that her six years in office advocating for district-specific and citywide projects have prepared her.
“I can show what I have done,” she said, pointing to her work addressing the city’s financial bonds, being on an ad-hoc committee that secured the $550 million Chevron settlement and traffic calming measures. “I feel like what we have demonstrated here in Richmond is that work has been done and continues to be done. I am not saying that we are the perfect city and we don’t have any problems but the things we have achieved are a lot.”
New primary election system sparks changes in Richmond politics
In 2024, Richmond voters adopted Measure J, which switches municipal elections to a primary system. Candidates only advance to November if there isn’t a majority vote winner in June.
Measure J was supported heavily by the Richmond Police Officers Association (RPOA) and local trades unions that have been critical of the RPA. The primary system is seen as an effort to stifle the progressives, who have won a series of elections over the last decade in the city’s previous plurality system where a candidate can win if he or she receives the highest number of votes.
Now, a candidate for mayor or city council must get 50% or more majority of the votes cast in their primary race to win a seat outright. If no candidate meets that threshold, there will be a run-off election between the primary’s top two candidates in November where the top vote-getter will win.
Jimenez will join a short primary campaign season for the mayor’s seat alongside challengers Anderson, Johnson and Wassberg. (If Martinez or any incumbent decides not to run, the filing deadline would be extended to March 11. The election is June 2.)
Should Jimenez win, she would become the city’s first Latina mayor and first mayor to be born outside the country. Her district city council seat would become vacant and, according to the new primary rules, would need to be filled by a special election. Previously, the council had the power to vote to appoint someone to fill a vacancy but this changed when a primary system was adopted.
Jimenez said she isn’t changing much of her messaging entering this campaign, emphasizing that she will continue to maintain her progressive stance on topics such as public safety, a just transition to an economy not dependent on fossil fuels and supporting the rights of the city’s undocumented population in the midst of a second Trump presidency.
“People have elected me because I am part of the working class movement that has been fighting corporate greed, supporting renters and the low-income community here (in Richmond),” she added. “With a government that is so anti-immigrant, so anti-everything by doing works all over the world in a really imperialistic way, it is so important that local governments continue to be progressive, meaning that we are responding to what actually the community needs and deserves. That local progressive movement is so important right now because it is the antidote to what this current (federal) government is.”
Jimenez’s candidacy comes at a critical time for progressives
Jimenez’s mayoral candidacy comes at a critical time for the RPA and groups affiliated with its progressive movement in Richmond, political observers say, after Martinez faced a mass of criticism from voters and East Bay elected officials for sharing conspiracy theories on his LinkedIn account about the Bondi Beach mass shooting in December.
In the aftermath, sources close to the situation who spoke with Richmondside on the condition of anonymity said Martinez’s supporters and RPA members were concerned that the LinkedIn controversy would hurt his campaign by detracting from his political accomplishments, such as the creation of a public park from the sale of Point Molate to the East Bay Regional Parks District and the $550 million Chevron settlement. Martinez, during his first term, led Richmond’s effort to become the first city in the nation to adopt a Gaza-Israel ceasefire resolution and has, over the course of his term, maintained a strong stance on the topic.
But when the Richmond City Council considered formally censuring Martinez on Jan. 6, the public show of support for him both on social media and in-person seemed to indicate that he could weather the reputation crisis. Progressives filled the council chambers with dozens of speakers who, though condemning the conspiracy aspect of his posts, lauded the mayor’s record.
However, multiple sources close to Martinez’s campaign told Richmondside that, in the weeks after that council meeting, the support from long-standing RPA members, who had helped buoy Martinez in the wake of those political attacks, was waning and that there were lingering questions as to whether the LinkedIn controversy would ultimately derail his mayoral reelection bid.
Martinez told Richmondside in December he hadn’t considered whether his stance on conflicts in the Middle East could impact his reelection chances.
Jimenez told Richmondside that the RPA’s endorsement process has not changed. Typically, she said, the group will accept endorsement applications and a questionnaire from candidates. Then, a volunteer endorsement committee will debate and make suggestions before passing the list of candidates to the RPA steering committee. The steering committee then presents the candidates to the members who vote on the final slate of endorsed candidates.
She added that, although the decision was “difficult,” the members who attended Sunday’s meeting believe that she is the “best candidate” to lead the city’s progressive movement into the future.
“I think a lot of people were excited about the possibility of me running and I think the moment that Richmond is in, is a great space and time,” she said. “The next 10 years could be potentially a really big change if we do it well and I feel like I have demonstrated that I can lead in things that are making a big impact in the city.”
The RPA’s influence on the council has changed since the November 2024 election. While city elections are officially nonpartisan, the group’s members held a majority of votes — four seats — from 2022 to 2024, including RPA cornerstone and former mayor Gayle McLaughlin and former District 1 council member Melvin Willis. McLaughlin decided not to run in 2024, and Willis, who was a two-time incumbent at the time, lost to first-time candidate and vocal RPA critic Jamelia Brown.
Currently, the organization has three members in office — Martinez, Jimenez and District 5 council member Sue Wilson. Since losing his seat, Willis has assumed an organizing leadership role within the RPA, which has also seen the ascent of a membership of younger people of color in recent years.
Jimenez pushed back on the idea that her candidacy indicates fracturing in the RPA.
“On the contrary, this signals that we are all united,” she said. “This was a hard decision, I’m not going to lie. But this was a hard decision that everybody was united in to support me. I already have the word from many other people in other organizations and unions who, before they were not supporting (Martinez) and saying they were not interested in backing any candidate, now people are ready.
“People are excited and they’ve been telling me that it’s like a breath of fresh air to know that I’m running.”
Remaining June primary races see candidate changes
In addition to choosing a mayor, Richmond voters will also be electing city council representatives in Districts, 2, 3 and 4.
The District 2 race in Point Richmond and the Hilltop District neighborhoods has recently changed as challenger Rob Lipton told Richmondside on Tuesday that he is dropping his bid for incumbent Cesar Zepeda’s seat due to medical issues, leaving Zepeda unchallenged in a district he was elected to in 2022.
In District 3, Matthew Singh and Brandon Evans are challenging Doria Robinson; in District 4, incumbent Soheila Bana is running against Jamin Pursell and Keycha Gallon. Pursell, who previously was a member of the RPA, separated from the group last year and is not endorsed by it. The RPA has endorsed Robinson, though she isn’t a member of the organization.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated that Richmond’s prior election system was a simple majority. This has been changed to reflect that that city’s prior system was a plurality system.
Thanks for reporting on this!
In the 13th paragraph, you wrote “The primary system is seen as an effort to stifle the progressives, who have won a series of elections over the last decade by simple majorities.”
I think this doesn’t accurately describe what has happened, or how this election will be different. In the past, folks were sometimes elected not by a “simple majority”, but by a mere plurality. We don’t have to look far back for an example: Martinez was elected as mayor with only 36% of the votes https://richmondconfidential.org/2022/11/09/richmond-mayor-race/ , not a majority.
Generally, a simple majority is more than half of the votes that were cast (independent of how many registered voters exist). An absolute majority is more than half of the possible votes (not just the voters that actually did cast a vote), and a supermajority requires a higher threshold of the possible votes, like 2/3 of the members of congress needed to override a presidential veto.
The new primary system expressly allows a simple majority to win the position, whether that occurs in the first round or second round. The alternative Measure L would have also required a simple majority, but through an instant-runoff with ranked-choice voting. Both were seen as cures for a system in which winners were selected *without* a simple majority.
The new system moves toward elections by simple majority, not away from it.
Thank you Kevin, for catching that, and we will correct that.
Cool, and I’m glad to see that Richmondside now transparently notes corrections instead of just editing the article with no notice as it did previously.