A new mayor. A new Board of Supervisors. A new city.
All are possible after San Franciscans make their voice heard in Tuesday’s election.
The outcome may reveal the true depths of the electorate’s fear and animosity toward crime, homelessness, fentanyl, the state of downtown, and City Hall corruption. In many ways, this election is a seminal moment.
Will San Franciscans reject incumbents in the mayor’s office and on the Board of Supervisors? Or will they believe Mayor London Breed’s message that the city is on the rise?
While voters have been pelted with polls showing different data, the general consensus between them shows a strong showing for Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie, who has poured more than 8 million of his own wealth into the race. Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin and Breed herself are both still in contention.
The mayor often tells voters about her self-made rise from impoverished Western Addition projects to lead from City Hall’s glittering dome. At a live event at Manny’s last week, The Standard asked Breed which of her accomplishments a young, adolescent Breed would have valued most.
Breed said that when she was young, her community was devastated by gun violence. Today it’s a different city.
“When you look back, there were all these major turf wars killing the people you love, and I lived in the middle of that,” Breed said. “It was a very, very tough time and I wanted to see change.”
And a young Breed would be happy to see that the city’s homicide rate is on track to be the lowest it’s been since 1960.
Should she lose office, it will be the third time in recent city history that an incumbent mayor has been ousted in the wake of voter dissatisfaction. In 1991 Mayor Art Agnos suffered voters’ frustrations over homeless encampments, with one in front of City Hall dubbed “camp Agnos.” His replacement, Mayor Frank Jordan, himself lost to Willie Brown in 1995 as the electorate bemoaned a police department in disarray.
Board of Supervisors races across the city could also reshape the city’s direction on key issues. Many of those new city lawmakers may be new faces, too.
Incumbents like progressive Supervisors Dean Preston in District 5 (the Tenderloin, Haight Ashbury, and the Western Addition), Myrna Melgar (Lake Merced, Parkmerced), and Connie Chan (the Richmond District and Sea Cliff) are facing tough challenges from their political right. The outcome of those races may reveal the potency of law and order messaging in the wake of the pandemic when crime concerns topped voters’ minds.
In Districts 3, 9, and 11, which represent neighborhoods as diverse as Chinatown, North Beach, the Excelsior, the Mission, Potrero Hill, the Ingleside, and more, a bevy of challengers are seeking to replace termed-out members of the Board of Supervisors.
When a majority of the Board of Supervisors swings toward the progressive Democrat camp, they’ve oft-served as a check on the power of the mayor’s office, which for years has been occupied by more moderate Democrats.
Whether the Board of Supervisors tips moderate or progressive, however, is up in the air this election. And it just may determine who reins in the power of the mayor — if anyone.