Pamela Price announced Thursday that she will run to reclaim the Alameda County district attorney’s office in 2026, two years after voters recalled her from the position.
Price, a former defense attorney, was elected district attorney in 2022 on a campaign that touted reform and progressive values. But critics decried what they saw as lenient policies while crime spiked during the pandemic.
In announcing her return to politics ahead of a press conference scheduled for noon Thursday, Price sounded as if she would take a firmer hand this time.
“I am fighting for real solutions that stop the shootings, strengthen prevention efforts, and protect every neighborhood in this county,” she said in a statement.
Standing with supporters at a Hayward church, Price told reporters that she would stand up for vulnerable communities, including Latino residents whose civil rights she said have been violated, and expressed solidarity with Palestinian families.
The former district attorney, who made history as the county’s first Black woman to hold the position when she was elected in 2022, cast herself as a defender against billionaire influence in local politics. She blamed a single wealthy donor and “his wannabe wealthy friends” for spending millions of dollars to remove her from office in 2024.
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“In 2025, we see the carnage to our federal government caused by the billionaire class at the federal level,” Price said.
Ursula Jones Dickson, a former Superior Court judge, was selected by the county Board of Supervisors in January to serve the remainder of Price’s term, which ends in early 2027.
In a statement Thursday morning, Jones Dickson touted her unanimous appointment by county board of supervisors and the support she said she had earned from a board supermajority, as well as all of the county’s mayors, Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez and Rep. Eric Swalwell.
“When I was unanimously appointed by the Board of Supervisors to serve as District Attorney, I inherited a demoralized office and a charging backlog of more than 2,000 cases,” she said.
“We’ve done a lot of work to turn the District Attorney’s office around, and that work will continue for as long as I am District Attorney.”
Pointing to Price’s recall, Jones Dickson added that “[s]he’s welcome to make the case, less than a year after that recall, that they were wrong. I trust the judgment of Alameda County voters.”
Since the recall, which passed with 62% of the vote, Price has launched a podcast and Substack, “Pamela Price Unfiltered,” that focus on public policy and politics.
A Substack post (opens in new tab) written by community activist Tur-Ha Ak and shared Monday by Price calls out “false narratives to demonize and undermine the leadership of progressive women of color” around crime in Oakland.
“The rise in violent crime, the spikes in shootings, the surge in murders, the explosion of homelessness, and the illegal dumping crisis, all of this began, spiked, and persisted under Libby Schaaf and Nancy O’Malley,” the post says. “Not under the progressive women of color who came later. Not under the newer leadership that walked straight into crises they didn’t create.”