Nairobi's 2027 Governor Race: Babu Owino Leads, Sakaja Sits at 10 Per Cent

Updated 2 October 2026.

Nairobi is the largest single prize on Kenya's county map and, on current polling, the most exposed incumbency in the country.

A survey conducted between 14 and 19 April 2026 put Embakasi East MP Babu Owino on 37 per cent. Businesswoman Agnes Kagure followed. Governor Johnson Sakaja, according to polling reported through 2026, sat at around 10 per cent approval with roughly 80 per cent disapproving of his performance.

Those are unusual numbers for a sitting governor eleven months out.

The field

Beyond Owino and Kagure, the names in circulation include:

• James Gakuya, Embakasi North MP, seeking the seat on a DCP ticket.
• Ronald Karauri, Kasarani MP.
• George Aladwa, Makadara MP.
• Irungu Nyakera, a DCP patron in Nairobi.

Sakaja has said his record speaks for itself and that rivals do not scare him. He has also come under sustained criticism over a cooperation arrangement with the national government, and there has been open speculation in the Kenyan and international press about whether he might move to the opposition to hold the seat.

The DCP-Wiper arrangement

Worth noting because it constrains the field: Rigathi Gachagua's DCP and Kalonzo Musyoka's Wiper Patriotic Front have an arrangement under which DCP takes Nairobi's governor, senate and woman representative slots.

If that holds, an opposition-minded aspirant in Nairobi is choosing between a DCP ticket, another party's ticket in a city where the two largest opposition vehicles have agreed not to compete, or independence.

Why Nairobi is operationally different from everywhere else

Three things make a Nairobi county campaign unlike any other.

Scale. Seventeen constituencies, eighty-five wards, and the largest register of any county: 2,415,310 voters in 2022, almost twice Kiambu's 1,275,008. Agent coverage alone runs into thousands of people.

Density and transience. A Nairobi ward can hold more registered voters than a rural constituency, in a fraction of the space, with a population that moves. Household canvassing works differently when a third of the doors you knocked in March have new occupants by July.

Issue politics, not identity politics. Nairobi's electorate is the most mixed in the country. Garbage, water, street lighting, parking, matatu routes and market levies decide wards here in a way ethnic arithmetic does not.

What that means for an MCA aspirant in Nairobi

The governor's race will get the coverage. The ward races will get the volunteers.

A Nairobi ward campaign is a logistics exercise: hundreds of streets, high turnover, dozens of polling streams, and a set of complaints that are specific, local and verifiable. The candidate who wins is generally the one whose team has actually knocked the doors and can prove which ones — because in a ward decided by a few hundred votes, the difference between "we canvassed Umoja" and "we visited 1,840 households in Umoja and logged 306 complaints about drainage" is the entire margin.

That record has to be captured at the door, on a cheap phone, by the person who was there. It is the single hardest operational problem in a dense urban ward, and it is what BallotWinners was built to run — complaints logged with a photo and a location, every household visit recorded with what was said, and every polling stream showing whether it has an agent yet.

The arithmetic of the county

Nairobi has 17 constituencies and 85 wards, on boundaries drawn in 2012 and now deferred for review until after 2027. It carries one of the largest registered electorates in the country in one of the smallest land areas.

That combination produces the defining feature of Nairobi campaigning: wards with enormous voter numbers and many polling streams, packed into small areas. Agent recruitment for a county-wide race runs into thousands of people and is the single largest operational task any Nairobi campaign faces.

The defection question

There has been open speculation in the Kenyan and international press about whether Governor Sakaja might move to the opposition to hold the seat, after criticism of his cooperation arrangement with the national government.

Whether or not that happens, it illustrates the risk every Nairobi aspirant carries into 2027: your ticket may change, and your support has to survive it. In a county where DCP and Wiper Patriotic Front have already agreed who takes the governor, senate and woman representative slots, the number of available tickets is smaller than the number of serious candidates.

Related: coalition zoning explained.