OAKLAND — With days to go before Tuesday’s election, challengers in five Oakland City Council races are hitting the streets to get their message to voters. In the at-large race, the four challengers are even appearing at BART stations and the ferry terminal together to have a stronger voice.

In a city that typically favors incumbents, the challengers face the same problem: name recognition. If a chamber of commerce poll released last month holds, the new Oakland City Council will look like the old City Council. The poll found voters will likely go with the status quo.

“A lot of people still really just tend to vote for the names they already know,” said Joe Tuman, a former mayoral candidate and professor of political and legal communications at San Francisco State. “It’s not impossible for a newcomer to make headway or to win; I will just say it’s really difficult.”

Incumbents are running in all five races. In District 7, there’s Larry Reid, who has been on the council since 1997. Since 1992, voters in District 5 have cast ballots every four years with Noel Gallo’s name on them, first as he ran for school board, then to represent the city’s largely Latino district of Fruitvale.

Dan Kalb of North Oakland’s District 1 and Lynette Gibson McElhaney of District 3, which includes West Oakland, downtown and Adams Point, assumed office in 2013. And Rebecca Kaplan, who holds the at-large seat, has been in office since 2009.

To Tuman, one way to unseat a council person is to have a strong challenger with big-name backing and a vulnerable incumbent. He said he doesn’t see that in most of the races this year, but newcomers say they are hearing otherwise while canvassing.

“There’s tremendous dissatisfaction,” said at-large candidate Bruce Quan, a retired attorney who worked in the public and private sectors and taught at UC Hastings College of Law. “When I’ve gone out to various districts, I asked, ‘Have you met the incumbent?’ Of all the people I’ve spoken to, none of them have met Rebecca Kaplan.”

Quan and the other at-large seat challengers, Matt Hummel, Peggy Moore and Nancy Sidebotham, in the past week have been appearing at BART stations together to get their messages to voters. They also invited Kaplan to join them.

“Part of it is because of ranked-choice voting,” said Hummel, who is chair of the city’s Cannabis Regulatory Commission. “No one wants to run against each other. We want to let people know there’s options.”

Even with endorsements from Mayor Libby Schaaf and former Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente, candidate Viola Gonzales says it has been an uphill battle to gain an edge on Gallo. De La Fuente recently sent an endorsement email to his list of supporters.

“I think I do not have name recognition and that probably works against me,” said Gonzales, a longtime resident who has worked for former Mayor Elihu Harris and more recently for nonprofits. “At the same time, there is an air of discontent in general. There’s a lot of sentiment against incumbents.”

Noni Session, a West Oakland native, is running against Gibson McElhaney. Activist Nehanda Imara and Marcie Hodge, a former Peralta Community College District board trustee who ran unsuccessfully for mayor and for the Coliseum district seat held by Desley Brooks, are running against Reid. Kevin Corbett, a probate attorney, is challenging Kalb.

“There’s a lot of people in Oakland suffering under the current City Council,” said Session, who has walked 90 percent of District 3.