Kara Murray-Badal
Kara Murray-Badal ran in a special election to the Oakland City Council to represent District 2 in California. She lost in the special general election on April 15, 2025.
Murray-Badal completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Kara Murray-Badal was born in Oakland, California. She earned a bachelor's degree from Stanford University, a graduate degree from University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School, and a graduate degree from Harvard Kennedy School. Her career experience includes working as a policy director.[1]
Elections
2025
See also: City elections in Oakland, California (2025)
General election
General election for Oakland City Council District 2
The ranked-choice voting election was won by Charlene Wang in round 5 . The results of Round are displayed below. To see the results of other rounds, use the dropdown menu above to select a round and the table will update.
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Total votes: 12,583 |
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 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
Endorsements
Murray-Badal received the following endorsements. To view a full list of Murray-Badal's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here.
Campaign themes
2025
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Kara Murray-Badal completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Murray-Badal's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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My career spans impactful roles such as Crisis Project Manager at Bayer Healthcare and Deputy Director at The Mosaic Project, where I fostered cross-cultural communication and spearheaded diversity initiatives. An alumna of Stanford University, Harvard Kennedy School, and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, I combine world-class education with grassroots organizing experience to build bridges across communities and create transformative policies. I have consulted on safety policy for cities nationwide, led electoral campaign operations, and supported innovative housing solutions like building mixed income neighborhood trusts and using Medicaid dollars to house our unhoused neighbors.
I believe every resident deserves access to safe, affordable housing, vibrant community spaces, and opportunities to thrive. My leadership has been recognized through numerous accolades, including the 2024 East Bay Innovation Award for the Built Environment.- Oakland is in a budget crisis. My top priority in office will be ensuring our budget decisions preserve critical programs that support working class Oaklanders and avoid layoffs as much as possible. I am committed to exploring cost saving measures like executive and high level administrative pay, freezing vacant positions, police overtime reform, and examining consultant contracts for reductions before considering layoffs and destructive cuts to critical programs. We must also find new progressive revenue to fund City services, including increasing adherence to the business tax.
- Real public safety is comprehensive safety. I support a balanced approach of prevention and intervention that equitably addresses the root causes of crime. Right now, police are being asked to do things that they are not trained or suited to do. This doesn’t serve anyone, be it the victims of crime, our homeless neighbors, our community at large or the police themselves. I want to support communities and officers by giving them the work for which they are most trained, directly addressing violent and dangerous crimes. For other work, including addressing homelessness, drug addiction, and minor traffic and parking violations, we need to bring in trained specialists for these specific fields. This provides better outcomes and saves money.
- The rising cost of housing and resulting displacement threatens the fabric of our communities and drives the crisis of homelessness. As a Housing Affordability Director, I spend every day working to make housing more affordable; there is no other candidate in this race with more experience in housing. I believe in tackling the housing crisis from three angles: supply, stabilization, and subsidy. I believe the City should continue to find sources of revenue to directly invest in affordable and social housing throughout Oakland, in partnership with land trusts and non-profits. We also have to increase density near transit and job centers, with strong inclusionary policies to ensure market rate developments drive affordability.
As Housing Venture Lab Director for Terner Labs, I work to direct funding for critical and innovative housing affordability projects across the country. Every year, from approximately 150 applicants, we select 5-6 of the most promising ventures that we believe can scale to have major impact on housing affordability. Our first three cohorts have raised more than $490M and improved housing outcomes and wealth building for 163,000 people.
IFPTE Local 21
International Association of Fire Fighters Local 55
Alameda Labor Council
Oakland Rising Action
Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club
California Attorney General Rob Bonta
Alameda County Supervisor and Previous District 2 Councilmember Nikki Fortunato Bas
Interim Oakland Mayor Kevin Jenkins
Former Berkeley Councilmember Kate Harrison
Berkeley Rent Board Chair Soli Alpert
Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner Alfred Twu
Oakland Community Organizer Pamela Drake
Founder and Executive Director of TRYBE Andrew Park
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2025 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on February 13, 2025
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