Kevin McCarty’s ‘full circle’ moment becoming Sacramento’s next mayor

It has been an exciting year in Sacramento politics. 

The race to become the city’s next mayor was competitive from the start. A crowded field of recognizable faces, alongside a political newcomer who defied expectations.

After a nail-biting general election, Kevin McCarty edged out epidemiologist Dr. Flojaune Cofer with just over 50% of the vote — which was just over a 1% difference. 

On Tuesday, he was sworn in as Sacramento’s 57th mayor. 

Mayor McCarty moved to Sacramento as a young child and has spent 20 years in local and state politics. He was first elected to Sacramento City Council in 2004. And in 2014 he became a State Assembly member, with a district that included the city, until announcing his candidacy for mayor. 

McCarty spoke with CapRadio Insight Host Vicki Gonzalez to discuss the race and his priorities in his first year in office. 

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

Your campaign began in May of 2023 when you announced that you were going to run for mayor. At the time you were a State Assembly member. Did you anticipate the mayoral race to be as competitive as it turned out?

I knew that it was going to be a real contest. I knew that the electorate here in Sacramento, and frankly California and across the country, isn't always pleased by what they see. Issues of homelessness, public safety, housing, the cost of living, neighborhood viability, all of these issues, and there's frustration. I know sometimes people want change, they want to vote for an outsider. We saw outsider mayors elected in San Francisco and Berkeley, right down the street. So it was something that we knew was a reality. I had my pluses as far as experience, being able to achieve real progress and results. But [on] the flip side, I knew that some in the electorate wanted change, wanted something very different. We knew it was going to be a tight race and ended up prevailing. And now we govern. 

You have run and won campaigns before. You were first elected to city council, then to the State Assembly. How does this race stack up to the ones from the past? 

It's different and I am realizing how different it is. There's only one mayor in Sacramento. You are, for better or worse, the face of the city of Sacramento for all problems — good and bad. So it's taking some time to sink in.

But the first thing out of the gate is just engaging with people, slowing down, building my team — listening. I'm going to embark upon a 90-day engagement and listening tour, really listening to what neighborhoods and business groups and communities need and want from government, up and down the city. 

Given that this race was tight, I'm curious about that moment when you found out that you just clinched the mayoral race in the 11th hour.

It was wild. It was my final day in the Legislature. And I got a message saying “it's over.” It was just weird because they said “you won and the vote total is 1,941” and that's the year my mom was born. My late mom was my mentor, my hero, and did so much to put me in a place to serve Sacramento. She meant so much to me over the years, and then I saw that number. It just shocked me.

What a powerful moment. If she was alive today, what do you think it’d be like?

She'd be super excited. She was a single mom, struggled here in Sacramento. And she got her start working for the mayor of Sacramento, named Phil Eisenberg. He was her family law attorney. She volunteered on his campaigns, he encouraged her as a single mom to go to college and get a better future. And she did that. She sacrificed for eight years and went to school at night, worked during the day. During our adolescence it created a lot of challenges for us. Sometimes chaos in our household. She’d think it's wild and full circle. Some of her friends had been texting me and calling me and emailing me. [my mom’s] nickname was Babs, Barbara. [They] said, “Babs’s son is the mayor of Sacramento.” So I think she would think it's pretty cool. 

You’ve spent practically your entire life in Sacramento. If you could talk to a young Kevin McCarty, now as a parent yourself, what would you tell him? 

That life's a journey, it's a path. You have their ups and downs. A week ago I was at the New Mayor's Academy in Boston — the Kennedy School at Harvard. I thought, “Wow I'm walking around Harvard and 35 years ago I was at an adult school here in Sacramento after flunking out of high school. And now I'm mayor of Sacramento.”

As mayor, I said we do the basics — keep neighborhoods safe, help our economy thrive. But help people. Help people succeed, whether they're thriving or they're on their way. I would tell people that everybody has a place in society, and in Sacramento. And whether you're doing great, or not, or on your way — I would remind them that there are stories out there just like mine. So keep at it.

You won with a lead of just 1%. In a concession statement, Dr. Flojaune Cofer said she called to congratulate you. What was the conversation like?

It was a spirited conversation as far as the campaign and how we can work going forward. But most importantly, it was that we both ran races focusing on the direction of Sacramento and we have a lot of commonalities. How can we work to bring everyone together? 

One of the things that I've said to her is that it was a close election and I appreciate that she ran. I think she brought out a better candidate in me, and a better campaign, talking about the issues.

And I intended to be mayor for everybody. A lot of people I talked to at the door over the campaign said, “look, you guys are very similar. If you become mayor Kevin, we're fine. But we just want to look for something different.” So I am thinking about that a lot. People want to see things a little bit different, more openness and transparency at City Hall. So I'm gonna try to bring about all the pieces that I learned in the campaign to the next four years in Sacramento.