Maps: How your Berkeley neighbors voted in the 2024 election

Detailed election results released by county officials this month have shed more light on how some of 2024’s most important races played out in Berkeley.

The long-running divide between the city’s hills and flatlands showed up again in November as voters decided on local ballot measures as well as campaigns for mayor and state Senate. Meanwhile, even though she once called Berkeley home, Kamala Harris couldn’t match Joe Biden’s showing in this deep-blue city, echoing a nationwide theme that would doom her presidential campaign.

Local activist Darrell Owens mapped out the results from every race in Alameda County, which you can explore in detail on his website. Owens also shared that data with Berkeleyside, allowing us to highlight a few of the most interesting Berkeley results:

Mayor’s race: Ishii led in flatlands, while Hahn struggled outside North Berkeley Hills

New Mayor Adena Ishii didn’t win a majority of first-place votes in any of Berkeley’s precincts. But she pulled off a big political upset in the mayor’s race by picking up a plurality of support across most of the city, beating out the other two leading candidates in a wide range of neighborhoods, from the West Berkeley shoreline to the student-dominated Southside to the Claremont Hills.

Ishii led the field in first-place votes city-wide, and cemented her victory by winning a narrow majority of second-choice votes from supporters of former Councilmember Kate Harrison, who finished third.

Support for Ishii was strongest in the flatlands — particularly in South Berkeley, where she lives.

She won 46% and 44% of the vote, her highest totals, in the two precincts that make up the area bounded by Blake Street, Fairview Street, Sacramento Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Voters in those neighborhoods also supported progressive candidates, backing Democratic Socialist Jovanka Beckles in the race for state Senate and opposing the recall of Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price by a 2-to-1 margin. They embraced Ishii even though her campaign was endorsed by several traditionally moderate groups, such as the Berkeley Democratic Club.

Councilmember Sophie Hahn only finished first in the six precincts that make up the northeast corner of the city. Those wealthy and more politically moderate hillside neighborhoods strongly supported the Price recall; they also voted against Measure BB, an effort to strengthen tenant protections that Hahn helped write, and Measure W, a plan to restructure a tax that funds homeless services. Both measures overcame that opposition and passed thanks to their support outside the hills.

Harrison did not crack 30% support in any precinct. She was strongest in the downtown and Central Berkeley neighborhoods she represented for seven years as a council member until her surprise resignation last January, as well as the LeConte neighborhood.

Despite her ties to Berkeley, Harris slipped here, too

It’s hard to imagine another place where winning 88.2% of the vote counts as a lackluster showing, but that’s the case for Harris in Berkeley. Biden got 92.6% of the vote here four years ago, and won 7,056 more votes in the city than Harris did.

So does that mean Berkeley, like other urban areas, saw a big shift toward Donald Trump in 2024? Not really. Trump did improve on his 2020 showing, winning 3,032 votes in Berkeley this year, or 5.1%, compared to 2,555 in 2020, or 3.9%. But that’s a difference of less than 500 votes.

Third-party candidates saw a bigger improvement, winning about 600 more votes this year in Berkeley than they got in 2020.

Lower turnout seems to be where Harris lost the most ground locally: There were 59,997 ballots cast in Berkeley for the November election, compared 64,748 in 2020, a difference of 4,751. Just over 1,000 Berkeley voters this fall also did not make a selection in the race for president. Both of those factors could point to flagging enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket in this stronghold of its liberal wing, which was a hotbed of protests against the war in Gaza and criticism of Biden and Harris’ support for Israel.

It’s difficult to say where in the city Harris’ performance slipped, because county officials changed the boundaries of Berkeley’s voting precincts between 2020 and 2024. But four of the five wards where her support was lowest were student neighborhoods — including the precincts that make up Southside, fraternity row and the downtown core, where 79.9% of voters backed Harris, fewest of any precinct. Trump won at least 10% of votes, his best showing, in three student precincts.

State Senate: Beckles picked up support in Arreguín’s backyard

Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín punched his ticket to Sacramento by winning 57% of the vote in the race for state Senate District 7, which runs along the East Bay shoreline from Oakland to the Carquinez Bridge.

But Arreguín didn’t dominate on his home turf. Instead, he won a slightly narrower majority of Berkeley votes, 54%, as Beckles — an AC Transit director who challenged him from the left — finished first in several precincts.

Even though Arreguín out-spent Beckles by a 5-to-1 margin, she won the downtown and Southside precincts, as well as several in South Berkeley. The two candidates were practically even across West Berkeley.

Arreguín dominated in the Berkeley Hills, however, sealing his majority in the city that twice before elected him mayor. Nearly 75% of voters in the Claremont Hills precinct backed him, while those in the North Berkeley Hills supported Arreguín by a roughly 2-to-1 margin.