Two progressive candidates are battling for outgoing state Sen. Nancy Skinner’s District 7 seat, which represents roughly 847,000 voters in Contra Costa and Alameda counties along the I-880 corridor, including Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond and Alameda.
Democrat Jesse Arreguín, 40, is wrapping up his second term as Berkeley’s mayor, following his first election to the City Council in 2008 and the Rent Stabilization Board four years prior.
Democratic Socialist Jovanka Beckles, 61, has served on the AC Transit Board since 2020, following eight years on the Richmond City Council, more than two decades as a mental health professional and continuing community activism.
Both candidates vying for the deep-blue slice of the East Bay are running on platforms that emphasize similar goals to revamp outdated state housing and tax laws, vitalize efforts to clean up local industry operations and spur enough housing production to accomplish California’s ambitious goal of building 2.5 million units of new housing by the end of the year 2030.
But their approaches to crafting state legislation and budget policies reveal distinct differences in ideology, stemming from divergent personal and professional experience.
Prior to the primary election — when Arreguín earned 32.8% of votes, with 17.5% of ballots backing Beckles — donations from outside groups quickly distinguished District 7 as one of the most expensive state Senate races in 2024.
Since July, Arreguín’s campaign has raised more than $224,200, totaling roughly $835,000 in contributions supporting his bid for state senate this year. His campaign still had roughly a quarter-million dollars left to spend this election, according to campaign filings through Sept. 21. Independent expenditures supporting Arreguín exceeded $1.7 million by Oct. 7 — a majority of which has poured in from Super PACs funded by Uber, Lyft, PG&E, McDonalds, associations of builders, realtors, and landlords, plus the California Correctional Officers union.
Since July, Beckles received more than $85,500 in contributions — in total exceeding $221,600 in fundraising so far this year, according to campaign filings through Sept. 21. Beckles currently has $52,000 in available funds remaining. Opting not to take corporate monies, her top contributors include the SEIU California State Council, California Teachers Association for Better Citizenship and the California Conference Board Amalgamated Transit Union. Only two groups have shelled out independent expenditures backing Beckles, which totaled roughly $122,000 from two groups: Fighting for Our Future and the Courage California State PAC.
If elected, Arreguín wants to prioritize drafting legislation to create a statewide emergency rental assistance program, amend Prop. 13 to close corporate loopholes and advocate for a just transition to electrification, which is a big issue facing the district’s refineries and industry.
Arreguín vows to work across the aisle to get broad support for bills that spur transformative change addressing the region’s ongoing housing crisis, climate emergency and criminal justice reform. He has received endorsements from several senior public officials and a broad coalition of labor, business and community leaders, including Sen. Skinner, Gov. Gavin Newsrom, the Sierra Club, the California Democratic Party and a handful of labor unions.
While he said the status quo is not working, he said his 20-year political career in Berkeley regional legislative experience serving on the Association of Bay Area Governments, Bay Area Housing Finance Authority and Bay Conservation and Development Commission will help him push bills forward.
Arreguín’s campaign often boasts of his role in helping spur Berkeley’s development of hundreds of housing units over the last two years — a rate of production the city hasn’t seen in decades. Despite lagging on state targets for affordable housing construction, he said his “pragmatic” progressive approach has helped the city approve market-rate and student-oriented housing projects approved amid obstructionism, which he said can make goals for a “perfect” project the enemy of a “good” project, and NIMBY attitudes that block development altogether.
“I do believe that building more housing (for all income levels) actually does long-term help solve this problem, but I am also laser focused on helping finance permanently affordable housing,” Arreguín said, referencing his support for a future $20 billion ballot measure to help fund affordable housing. “We are facing such a huge housing shortage is because of obstructionism and people wanting to make ‘perfect’ the enemy the ‘good.’”
While Arreguín’s campaign has been criticized for several big donations from corporate Super PACs, Arreguín defends his record of standing up to business interests, specifically citing his work to bolster Berkeley’s minimum wage, fair work week, rent control and eviction moratorium policies, as well as regional efforts to address sea level rise and climate adaptation.
Arreguín said his pragmatism will help deliver results for constituents and get things done, arguing that his opponent’s “divisiveness and partisanship” will hinder efforts to move the needle in Sacramento.
“While we need to stay true to our deeply rooted progressive values, I also have to get things done, and that requires not taking ideological positions, but working with people to try to find common ground,” he said. “As a mayor, I’ve come to realize the limitations of how we can solve these challenges, and we need strong leaders in Sacramento who understand these issues, who have the trust and support of leaders throughout the district and who are focused on not just ideology but actually trying to solve problems.”
However, Arreguín has come under fire in the past year for refusing to consider a resolution calling for a ceasefire of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Numerous pro-Palestine protesters and progressive residents have criticized his choice to reject requests for more transparent discussion on the issue.
“I regret that we were not able to find an opportunity early on to have more dialogue to see how we can come together, but I also hold responsible those activists that didn’t want to have a dialogue,” Arreguín said. “I think we did the best we could to manage a very difficult situation — an intentionally disruptive situation — and go about doing our job that the voters elected us to do, which is to run a city.”
If Beckles is elected, her number one priority in Sacramento would be addressing income inequality through increasing affordable housing construction and minimum wages, as well as reforming existing state law, such as Prop 13.
But she said she sees all of this work through a lens of climate change — arguing that no policies will be effective without a habitable planet. Referencing her experience as a Teamster union member, Beckles vows to help usher in a green, just transition that will both support industrial workers and hold billion-dollar corporations accountable for funding community revitalization. She pointed to her work on the Richmond City Council to secure millions from Chevron to fund college scholarships for students and AC Transit’s move towards zero-emission buses – initiatives that garnered support from grassroots organizations like the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Communities for a Better Environment and the Jane Fonda Climate PAC.
When it comes to housing, Beckles wants to prioritize affordable and social housing projects, arguing that focusing on market-rate housing doesn’t address current residents’ needs. In order to accomplish this push, she wants to bring back redevelopment funds and help further streamline permitting processes, in addition to connecting nonprofit community organizations with state and federal agencies to help acquire vital funding for future projects – pointing to the success of an Oakland supportive housing project spearheaded by former Black Panther Party Chairwoman Elaine Brown.
“We’re not going to build our way out of this crisis by building market-rate housing,” Beckles said, criticizing decisions in Berkeley and other East Bay cities to set mandates for all units. “We get ourselves out of this crisis by building more affordable, low-income units that folks can actually afford.”
Citing her lived experience as a Black, Latina, queer immigrant woman, Beckles said she is uniquely qualified to address the challenges faced by the community, calling herself the “people’s candidate.”
She said her background working as a mental health professional and wraparound service facilitator for more than two decades gives her a unique perspective to collaborate and problem solve directly with grassroots organizations and unions – a position that has garnered endorsements from the California Teachers Association and National Union of Healthcare Workers, as well as elected officials including Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, U.S. Representative Ro Khanna and Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“The 99% is always considered the underdog when it comes to big moneyed interest, which is why I’m so proud of being corporate free,” Beckles said, referring to her rejection of big donors. “This movement is greater than myself, but it comes with a passion that says, ‘I want power, not for me, but for us as a working class community.”
She embraces being seen as an “underdog,” saying that voters deserve elected officials that bring fresh perspectives, creative ideas and practical efficiency to the legislature, rather than representatives that push for small, incremental changes to address myriad crises in California and globally.
“‘Pragmatic’ progressivism is a term, to me, that doesn’t address the urgency of certain matters – we have to be practical and realistic, but we also can’t sit on the fence and figure out the popular opinion of the day,” Beckles said. “I’m a progressive and practical person who uses common sense, but most importantly, I listen to people.”