Live blog: Connie Chan wins in D1, and other election updates

Election Day is behind us. Voters nationwide and in San Francisco are processing the results, with many races still up in the air.

Donald Trump will be the next president. Daniel Lurie will be the next mayor. And voters have said yes to closing a stretch of the Upper Great Highway to private vehicles.

Among the still-undecided races, Prop. D, which aims to dramatically reduce the number of city commissions, is on track to lose.

And then there is the hotly contested battle for District 5. The supervisor race is one of the most expensive ever. Incumbent Dean Preston holds the slimmest of leads in first-choice votes, but Bilal Mahmood has the edge in ranked-choice results.

This story will be updated with more local and national election results as soon as they are available.

Supervisor Connie Chan has won a hotly contested election battle to keep her job representing District 1, which includes the Richmond neighborhood.

Chan beat out Marjan Philhour by 1,167 votes as of Monday’s ranked-choice tally.

Both Chan and Philhour received 11,001 votes (including a ranked-choice tally) in earlier returns, with the incumbent pulling ahead by 976 votes on Sunday.

With challenger Bilal Mahmood lead widening over Supervisor Dean Preston, the incumbent conceded the race in District 5 Sunday evening.

Supervisor Myrna Melgar successfully fended off her challenger in District 7, with the incumbent garnering 52.7% of the vote to Matt Boschetto’s 47.3% in the latest round of returns.

Proposition K — the proposal to close a portion of the Upper Great Highway to cars, with the idea that it will eventually become a new park — was the most controversial of a raft of San Francisco ballot measures, and naturally it came down to the wire. But after three days of tallying the votes, it has passed with more than 54% of the vote.

Daniel Lurie, the Tipping Point nonprofit founder and heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, has succeeded in his bid to upset incumbent London Breed in the San Francisco mayoral race.

With nearly 250,000 votes counted, Lurie has 69,005 first-place votes to Breed’s 60,818. His advantage in ranked-choice votes, roughly 56% of the total to Breed’s 44%, hasn’t budged significantly since initial election-night tallies.

Aaron Peskin, president of the Board of Supervisors, remains third in first-place votes with more than 53,000, followed by former Supervisor Mark Farrell at nearly 46,000.

— The Standard Staff

Alternating between defiance and mournfulness, dozens of LGBTQ+ people and allies gathered Wednesday evening in the Castro in a hybrid rally-vigil. Organized by the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, attendees lit candles, screamed in unison, and took turns speaking about what Donald Trump’s impending second term might mean for an embattled queer community.

Club president Gary McCoy noted that transgender Americans are particularly at risk, given the national GOP’s hostility to gender-affirming care.

Speaking to The Standard, newly reelected Scott Wiener offered his thoughts on the nation’s sudden rightward lurch. “It’s not surprising, but it’s devastating,” he said, noting that his hopes now rested on the possibility that Democrats might retake the House of Representatives.

“This community has been through so much for so many years — severe crisis, on and off again,” Wiener added. “It’s very depressing, but it motivates me to do everything in my power to keep fighting.”

The crowd, audibly tearful, clutched their candles.

— Astrid Kane

Sitting inside Tempest Bar & Box Kitchen, sniffling, Caitlin Liversidge said that after Donald Trump’s victory, she fears for her 8-month-old daughter, Lola, saying that abortion is a “big issue” for her.

“As a woman, and a mother with a daughter, that she may not have the right to control her body is scary to me,” said the 40-year-old single mother, with tears in her eyes.

Liversidge, whose infant daughter is Black, said she is also concerned about how Trump’s presidency will impact her daughter’s education. While not part of Trump’s official “Agenda 47” platform, book bans have accelerated across the country in recent months.

An Australian national who’s lived in the U.S. for 14 years, Liversidge said friends in her home country have texted her saying how “disgusted” they are at the election results and have urged her to return to Australia.

“I want schools to educate her on her heritage. This country was built on the backs of Indigenous and Black people, and I want her to learn that,” she said, her voice breaking.

Walking past Harris campaign headquarters at the former Nordstrom Rack on Market Street, health nonprofit worker Darla Bratton said she’s worried about how Trump’s victory will affect her work.

“Unless you’re a white male with privilege, he doesn’t consider you,” said Bratton, who works for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

Bratton, 55, who described herself as a vegan and a “tree-hugger,” said the nonprofit is dependent on government grants to carry out its work, which centers on providing sexual health and substance use services, particularly for those with HIV. She’s worried about the foundation’s funding given Trump’s rhetoric about transgender people, who the nonprofit frequently provides services for.

Despite her concerns, Bratton said she’s trying to keep her chin up in the face of a second Trump presidency, noting, “I’m still hopeful. I still believe the good guy will win in the end.”

— Garrett Leahy

Vice President Kamala Harris announced that she has conceded defeat to former president Donald Trump in an address at Howard University, her alma mater, in Washington, D.C.

“My heart is full today. Full of gratitude for the trust you have placed in me. Full of love in our country and full of resolve,” Harris said. “The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for, but hear me when I say the light of America’s promise will always burn bright as long as we never give up and as long as we keep fighting.”

During her speech, which lasted just under 12 minutes, the vice president struck a gracious yet fiery tone as she committed to a peaceful transition of power and acknowledged the disappointment and fear among her supporters.

“While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fueled this campaign,” Harris said. “The fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness, and the dignity for all people. A fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation — the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up.

“I will never give up the fight for a future where Americans can pursue their dreams, ambitions, and aspirations, where the women of America have the freedom to make decisions about their own body and not have their government telling them what to do,” she continued. “We will never give up the fight to protect our schools and our streets from gun violence. And America, we will never give up the fight for our democracy, for the rule of law, for equal justice, and for the sacred idea that every one of us, no matter who we are or where we start out, has certain fundamental rights and freedoms that must be respected and upheld.”

Brushing away tears as they looked up from their seats, dozens of people at Manny’s café in the Mission watched Harris’ address Wednesday afternoon. The crowd applauded amid sniffles and soft shushes as she vowed to continue to fight for the country and urged supporters to do the same.

“The important thing is don’t ever give up. Don’t ever give up. Don’t ever stop trying to make the world a better place,” Harris said. “This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves. This is a time to organize, to mobilize, and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together.”

Café owner Manny Yekutiel told everyone gathered that whatever they’re feeling — everything they’re feeling — right now is valid. “Whether it’s rage, despondency, confusion, shock — be merciful with yourself,” he said.

Yekutiel praised some in attendance who volunteered for weeks of intense campaign activities, including organizing nearly 500 first-time door-knockers for canvassing efforts in Nevada.

He also spoke candidly about his personal investment in the campaign.

“I feel like a failure,” Yekutiel said, his voice heavy with emotion. “I put so much of myself, my body, my soul into this woman’s campaign. I believed with every cell that she was going to win.”

Former eBay executive and mountaineer Silvia Vasquez-Lavado, who had just returned from canvassing in Pennsylvania, offered a perspective shaped by her experience scaling some of the world’s highest peaks.

“Let’s take today to mourn, to cry, listen to Ella Fitzgerald, whatever we want to do,” Vasquez-Lavado said. “But tomorrow, we continue the fight.”

She noted the complex political dynamics revealed by the election, including that almost half of Latino voters supported the opposition.

Yekutiel said his café will remain open as “a seat of resistance,” adding, “we’ve done it before, we’re going to do it again.”

Despite the palpable disappointment, speakers emphasized the importance of continuing civic engagement.

“We haven’t lost the battle,” Vasquez-Lavado said. “We just lost this massive thing that we all had hope for, but we keep cracking on that ceiling.”

— Stephanie K. Baer and George Kelly

Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price is urging voters to be patient while election workers tally all the votes in the recall that will determine whether she’s removed from office.

Totals released early Wednesday showed that the yes vote to end the progressive prosecutor’s term, at 64.8%, was far ahead of the no vote, at 35.2%.

But Price hoped that the hundreds of thousands of remaining ballots could work in her favor. The next update will come later this week, she said.

“This presidential election, which has been a pivotal moment for our country as well as our state, witnessed significant voter participation, resulting in a large number of ballots in Alameda County. There are still so many more ballots to be counted, and in areas that I know we did well in getting our message out,” Price said in a statement. “I am optimistic that when all the votes are counted, we will be able to continue the hard work of transforming our criminal justice system.”

— Michael McLaughlin

At Manny’s café, Nancy Alpert sat with her tea, searching for solace among fellow residents processing the previous day’s election results.

“Right now, it feels a little broken and devastating,” said Alpert, a San Francisco resident. “But hopefully [it’s] something that can be built back into something meaningful.”

Alpert, who described herself as more politically engaged during this election cycle than in 2016, chose Manny’s because of its reputation for political activism. While not a regular patron, she said she felt drawn to the café “because it felt like a place like-minded people would be hanging out.”

The previous night, Alpert said she coped by eating leftover Halloween candy and watching comedy shows. “I barely could get out of bed today,” she said.

Reflecting on the election’s impact, Alpert expressed particular disappointment about the outcome for women in politics. “We had a qualified candidate,” she said. “It’s just beyond.”

— George Kelly

Californians voted down Prop. 33, a state ballot measure that would have allowed local governments to vastly expand rent control by repealing the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act.

San Francisco was poised to expand rent control to all residential buildings erected before 1994 if the measure passed. But its failure keeps the current cutoff date of 1979.

Prop. 33 was the third attempt for statewide rent control expansion since 2017. All three have been rejected.

— Kevin Truong

A local vendor known for hawking Trump-branded merchandise called for greater dialogue between the city’s political parties.

Arjun Sodhani, who sells T-shirts, hats, and other campaign-related gear, said he attended an election watch party Tuesday night before returning to his usual place of business in Union Square.

He said he observed some residents having “meltdowns” about the election results on social media, but attributed much of the anxiety to misunderstandings about policy positions.

“I wish I could go talk to them and explain, like just comfort them and be like, ‘Hey, don’t worry about that. Your concern is not really real,’” Sodhani said, citing immigration and abortion policies as areas where he believes voters have been misinformed.

While the heavily Democratic city showed little outward sign of election reaction Wednesday morning, Sodhani emphasized that neither major party has all the answers to San Francisco’s challenges.

“The Republican party in San Francisco, they meet on the first Wednesday of the month, and the Democrat Party meets on the last Wednesday of the month. And they never talk to each other,” Sodhani said. “If we want to really unite the country, unite the city, then we gotta have, you know, join together and actually meet and talk and have hard conversations.”

— George Kelly

As the tide turned against VP Kamala Harris late Tuesday night and into the early hours of Wednesday, the candidate receded from view, declining to appear at her own official watch party.

She will resurface at 1 p.m. PST in a scheduled address from her D.C. alma mater, Howard University. With Donald Trump’s tally of electoral votes standing at 292, per the Associated Press, it will almost certainly be a concession speech. According to New York Times reporter Kellen Browning, Harris has already conceded to Trump privately.

Not only did Harris fail to win a single swing state, she underperformed Joe Biden’s 2020 results in every single U.S. county — including her home turf of San Francisco and Alameda.

— Jeff Bercovici

Reeling from Election Day? Burning questions about what’s next? Join The Standard’s politics team to debrief, decompress, and discuss the results and open questions about the 2024 San Francisco election.

The discussion is today from noon to 1 p.m. PST.

Click here to register for the free event.

Speaking to supporters from his watch party in West Palm Beach, Florida, Donald Trump declared victory following major networks’ crucial race calls in his favor in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“This was a movement like nobody’s ever seen before, and frankly, this was, I believe, the greatest political movement of all time,” Trump said. “We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible. … Look what happened, is this crazy?”

The former president was surrounded by his children and extended family as he spoke. His running mate, J.D. Vance, called the presumptive win “the greatest political comeback” in U.S. history.

— Stephanie K. Baer

Moments ago, San Francisco Republicans broke out in “USA, USA” chants after Fox News called the 2024 presidential election for Donald Trump.

—Kevin V. Nguyen

Earlier on Tuesday night at the Mucky Duck in the Inner Sunset, District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar gathered with supporters and family to watch the election returns come in. Her opponent, Matt Boschetto, had managed to earn the endorsement of some large and generous groups, turning the district race into somewhat of a nail-biter. But Melgar seemed confident.

“Going in, I thought, who’s going to run against me?” she said, nursing a tall glass of cider. “Then when Together SF, Grow SF, and Neighbors decided to endorse the other guy who has never been involved in the community, never even been a part of his homeowner’s association, I was like, ‘Oh shit,’ because they have money. I had prepared for a real race, but I didn’t think I was going to have to run one. … I left it all on the table. I feel good.”

As early returns came in showing Melgar with a healthy lead, she and her supporters sighed with relief. “It’s better than we thought it might be. Now I’m most worried about what’s happening up there,” she said, gesturing at the national election coverage on the TV above the bar.

As people came and congratulated Melgar, the state of Georgia was called for Trump. Excited expressions turned dark until a new group of excited Melgar supporters arrived at the bar.

— Emily Dreyfuss

Taking a defiant tone during his Tuesday night campaign party, mayoral candidate Daniel Lurie spurred up the crowd with a victorious speech as he edged out incumbent London Breed in early results.

Halfway through his speech, with his children watching and his wife, Becca Prowda, sitting close by, Lurie teared up.

“I started this campaign not as a politician but as a dad who could not explain to my kids what we were seeing on our streets and what they were seeing on our streets,” said Lurie. “When you love something as much as we all love San Francisco, you fight for it, and it’s time to roll up our sleeves.”

— Gabe Greschler

A 10:35 p.m. results drop showed Supervisor Dean Preston taking the lead in first-choice votes, as he had previously anticipated. A crowd at the sitting supervisor’s party cheered as they reviewed the official tallies.

“This is a pattern of every race I run that the early vote doesn’t tend to favor the progressive candidate,” Preston told The Standard. “I’m optimistic.”

He said the early results in his race as well as the results in District 9, which show progressive candidate Jackie Fielder in the lead, seem to indicate that San Francisco’s purported political shift to the right may have been overblown.

“Both of us have run unapologetically progressive campaigns,” Preston said. “The attempt by big money interest in this city to paint left candidates as being out of touch with their districts doesn’t appear to have worked.”

— David Sjostedt

It’s San Francisco’s collective nightmare: Former president Donald Trump is poised to return to the Oval Office. But local officials — all Democrats — were ready. Breed praised voters’ passage of Proposition O on the local ballot, a measure aimed at safeguarding the right to abortion in the city.

“One of the reasons why I put Proposition O on the ballot is we had to be prepared for anything to happen,” Breed told reporters at her election night party at Victory Hall.

The silence from her once-cheering supporters was palpable as they considered a second Trump presidency. Breed, sensing the mood shift, consoled the crowd.

“At the end of the day, we have to be hopeful,” she said.

— Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

Mayoral candidate Mark Farrell has made a sort of concession speech at his election night party.

Shortly after, the ranks quickly thinned at Chestnut Street bar Campus.

As the night wore on, many of the partygoers had their eyes glued to CNN, with election coverage playing on six TVs around the bar’s back patio.

Trump supporter Chris Dawood, 38, called the presidential race “existential” and said inflation is the issue he’s most concerned about. Despite Trump having 246 electoral delegates compared to Harris’ 187, Dawood said he’s not resting easy.

“I really don’t know,” Dawood said. “Five of the seven swing states are still too close to call.”

— Garrett Leahy

Cheers exploded when school board candidate Supryia Ray walked into Standard Deviant Brewing. Ray was one of three candidates endorsed by watch party organizers SF Parent Action, but she seemed to be the one who excited attendees the most.

Sarah Meskin, a parent with two kids in SFUSD, said with the prospect of a Donald Trump victory nearing, Ray has been a rare bright spot.

“Supryia Ray doing well in the race is the one good thing happening tonight,” she said. Ray currently sits in third place in a race for four open board spots.

Other SFUSD parents in the room shared in the excitement, arguing that Ray was in it for the long haul.

“I’ve never met someone so earnest in her reasons for running,” one said. “You ask candidates that are running, and they’ll tell you, this is a stepping stone.”

Ray said she feels “cautiously optimistic” about her race and spoke of gratitude for her supporters, many of whom are parents and families in the school district.

Regardless of what happens at the national level, Ray said, local elections like the school board hold great importance.

“We will absolutely continue to uphold our SF values,” she said, citing tolerance, respect, and communication, among others. “We need to make sure kids feel safe.”

— Beki San Martin

By the time the SF Dem’s watch party officially shut down around 10 p.m., the only smiling faces belonged to those who realized they could take home the leftover Indian food. The group had posted a list of other election parties at its exit, but most of the folks The Standard talked to said they planned to just go home to bed.

“I’m feeling a little disheartened — this was clearly not the landslide that we wanted for Kamala Harris,” said Carrie Barnes, vice chair of SF DCCC. “I think that she’s run a great campaign and if she had gotten started earlier, maybe we would be seeing more of a clear victory. I’m trying to stay optimistic.”

Despite the less-than-sunny mood among attendees at the end of the night, she felt that the watch party had a good crowd, including many “dedicated volunteers” who’d been working hard for weeks.

As for her evening, Barnes wasn’t ready to tuck in just yet, saying: “I’m probably going to head to some after-parties.”

— Jillian D’Onfro

It’s not over yet. That’s the message from Mayor London Breed to her supporters at her election party. She took press questions at a microphone stand as her supporters cheered on.

When asked how she feels about the results as they stand, Breed struck a defiant tone. She was behind in her 2018 race against Mark Leno and Jane Kim, too, she said.

“And you see me standing here right now as mayor of San Francisco,” she said.

Her tone sharpened, and revulsion rolled off her tongue, when The Standard asked about the mountain of money spent in the mayor’s race.

“It has tremendous impact,” Breed said. “It’s been one of the most sad and horrible things that someone could take their personal wealth and buy this office. It’s disgusting.”

— Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

Watching CNN, Together SF Action CEO Kanishka Cheng called Trump’s lead in the presidential race “depressing” but added that she remains “hopeful and optimistic” about Prop. D, which her organization put on the ballot to slash the number of city commissions from 130 to 65 and empower the mayor.

However, early results show the ballot measure is trailing, with 54.3% of counted ballots opposing it as of 10 p.m.

— Garrett Leahy

The first drop of mayoral election results showed Peskin in third place, but the City Hall veteran isn’t worried.

“We’re where we expected to be,” Peskin said, adding that he expected to overtake Breed in the next batch of results. And if it came down to him and Lurie?

“It’ll be close,” Peskin said.

— Max Harrison-Caldwell

At Bilal Mahmood’s party in Lower Pacific Heights, the could-be supervisor dismissed speculation from Supervisor Dean Preston’s camp about an incoming wave of progressive votes.

“When people write about this race, it wasn’t because of the money that he lost,” Mahmood told The Standard. “It’s because he was wrong on the issues. He’s losing because he never even touched on safety.”

Following his speech to supporters at Pride of the Mediterranean restaurant, Mahmood’s attention quickly turned from the election to another topic: hummus.

Mahmood said he chose the restaurant for his party because the owner “has been a supporter from the beginning — and they have great hummus.”

This reporter confirmed that the hummus is delicious.

— David Sjostedt

This isn’t your typical election night event. It’s a “no watch” green-themed dance party for San Francisco’s biggest brats “to celebrate the color of the year and survive election night.”

Instead of being greeted by politicos, a man dressed up as A-‘brat’-ham Lincoln welcomes attendees into Question Mark Bar in SoMa and offers them a coconut Malibu shot, a reference to Harris’ viral quip, “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?”

Brat Summer — a style aesthetic inspired by British pop star Charlie XCX’s album “Brat” and its lime-green background — continues well into the winter at this election party put on by Palette, a group that organizes monthly color-themed dance parties in San Francisco.

This party’s theme, Palette cofounder Daniel Benny, aka DJ Decibel, said, was a no-brainer. “Since Kamala got anointed as ‘brat,’ why not a brat green election party?” said Daks, referring to Charlie XCX’s summer tweet declaring “Kamala IS brat.”

In the spirit of the brat, which has been described as messy, blunt, and slightly rebellious, this is perhaps the only election party without TVs. Instead, the DJ announces election results between techno remixes of Charlie XCX and Billie Eillish.

“Instead of watching the CNN newscasters go in circles, let’s have a dance party on a Tuesday,” said Brenna Hull, a lawyer and cofounder of Palette, who invited people to combine their “feral 365 party-girl energy and existential dread on a sweaty dance floor.”

People look visibly nervous about a possible Trump victory as they enter the party. But they’re trying to distract themselves with the inflatable coconut trees scattered across the bar and a brat-inspired tattoo booth.

“This might end up being the worst party we’ve thrown,” said Hull. “But I’m still happy we’re doing it.”

— Rya Jetha

Another round of cheers at the SF GOP election night watch party as CNN projects that Trump will win the battleground state of Georgia.

— Kevin V. Nguyen

In preliminary results, East Bay voters backed the recalls of Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price by almost identical margins of nearly two to one. Both are progressive women of color elected in 2022; both have faced criticisms of failing to address rampant crime in Oakland. Read more here.

— Jeff Bercovici

Under fluorescent lights and multiple MSNBC projections, everyone at the SF Dems party at the old downtown Nordstrom Rack practiced their primal screams. Then, City Attorney David Chiu instructed them to tell the person next to them that they were beautiful.

Chiu and a slate of other speakers, including Assemblymember Matt Haney, state Sen. Scott Wiener, and SF Dems Chair Nancy Tung, attempted to calm the evening’s attendees.

“Keep in mind the red mirage and the blue shift,” Tung said, as results flashed on the screen behind her

“We’re all anxious, but this is not over yet,” Weiner echoed.

Onlookers didn’t appear to have the same confidence.

“I’m nervous eating,” said Tri Tan, gesturing to his heaping plate of Indian food. “I’m anxious. I’m very emotional.”

Despite states to call and millions of votes to count, there was a palpable sense of dread in the room.

“I’m very nervous — it’s a lot closer than I was expecting,” said Thom Davies, who, as a green card holder, couldn’t vote himself. “I was holding out hope for a surprise landslide.” He worries how a Trump presidency could affect western liberalism.

Despite the frenetic energy, attendee Chris Johnighan, for his part, was staying cool.

“I feel fine,” he said. “This is not panic time right now.” Until Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin got called, he vowed he wouldn’t worry. “I’m fine — it will be fine.”

— Jillian D’Onfro

“So, how ya feelin’?” Seems to be a common refrain at tonight’s election watch parties across San Francisco.

“Not great,” was the common retort.

At District 3 candidate Sharon Lai’s election watch party, dozens of people packed out to support Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s number one endorsement over a buffet of Chinese cuisine.

Sporting a T-shirt that reads “Divorce your Republican husband,” Lily Contino sat anxiously watching the election results roll in as Trump clinched North Carolina.

“I’m trying not to freak out,” she said. “Anything could happen. It would be a sad day for everyone, including trans people, if Harris loses.”

— Sam Mondros

With news that Trump has won North Carolina and is improving on his 2020 performance, the mood at the SF GOP party in North Beach has turned from cautiously optimistic to outright jovial. Attendees are passing around fake Trump 2024 bills and waving American flags.

“The Democrats are freaking out,” said Manuel Noris-Barrera, who is running against Assemblymember Matt Haney, to applause and cheers. “Donald Trump is going to be president, and we’re going to celebrate tonight.”

Yvette Corkrean, who is running against state Sen. Scott Wiener, said she was thankful for the “quiet” Republican support she’s received during her campaign. In her remarks, she claimed her opponent is “not very kind to our family and kids,” which drew sneers from the crowd, including one heckler who yelled that Wiener was a “pervert.”

“That’s not very nice,” Cockrean responded. “But with that attitude, we can defeat him together.”

— Kevin V. Nguyen

By the time the elections department released its first votes report at 8:45 p.m. Tuesday, more than 150 people had packed into Marina district bar Campus for an election watch party co-organized by Together SF Action and Mark Farrell’s mayoral campaign.

Yet Farrell himself was nowhere to be found — it seems he is fashionably late to his own party.

Still, Farrell supporters were out in droves.

— Garrett Leahy

Excitement spread through nonprofit founder Daniel Lurie’s party at the Chapel in the Mission District after results showed Lurie in a comfortable first place with 28.8% of the vote in the initial 8:45 p.m. drop compared to Mayor London Breed’s 24.87%.

“Starting five points up in a race where we know we do well in ranked-choice voting simulations is a good place to be,” said Max Szabo, a spokesperson for Lurie’s campaign.

The party at the Chapel was exploding with people late in the evening, with about 1,000 people expected to attend.

Jaiden Forey, who studies journalism at San Francisco State University, said she “really admires” Lurie’s policies. Forey moved to the city three years ago and feels she’s seen parts of the city decline. She said she’s especially concerned about homelessness. “Honestly, I want to see change because I’m planning on staying here after college,” said Foley, whose boyfriend works on the Lurie campaign. “I’ve talked to him. I believe he’s a good guy.”

Lurie’s brother, Alexander, had similarly good things to say.

“We’re all really proud of him,” he said. “And I’m certain that he will, on day one, be the leader that I think many of us already know.”

— Gabe Greschler

At Dean Preston’s election party in the Haight, his campaign manager, De’Marea Brandy, cautioned supporters that early vote results may not reflect positively on the sitting supervisor. Still, the campaign was confident in its chances, saying it had knocked on more than 127,000 doors and veered from corporate donors.

“Over a year, we’ve been fighting tooth and nail against these tech demagogues and corporate interests that are hell-bent on taking over our city,” Brandy told the crowd. “The numbers will only get better and better as our Dean voters, the late voters, the slackers, the deadbeats, those votes will be coming in,” he said to laughs from the crowd.

Early results released at 8:50 p.m. showed Preston trailing by just under 200 votes, which the supervisor considered a good sign.

“The initial drop is always the least progressive,” Preston told The Standard. “We’ve faced that before.”

— David Sjostedt

Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff won the California U.S. Senate seat long held by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday after a lopsided, low-key contest.

— Associated Press

Breed’s supporters at Victory Hall & Parlor, by the ballpark, are already hitting the sauce after seeing national election results tip toward former president Donald Trump. Their drinking options are appropriately mayor-themed.

There’s a Mayor-Rita for folks to drown their sorrows in tequila, peach, and lime with a spiced salt rim or an electoral elixir with hideout vodka, calamansi, and hot honey (both for a San Francisco-usual $14).

One of those cocktails may not be so great for Breed supporters, considering her current status in the polls: the “victory lap,” with dusse cognac, lemon, simple syrup and orange.

While anything can happen, that drink, in particular, might be a little premature.

— Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

About 70 people packed Celia’s by the Beach in the Outer Sunset for the Yes on K election night party, supporting the effort to close the Upper Great Highway to cars.

Campaign manager Lucas Lux gave an emotional speech before raising a glass with supporters. Supervisor Joel Engardio estimated he had knocked on 2,000 doors to campaign for the measure.

— Han Li

Breed may be down in the polls, but you wouldn’t know it at her reelection party at Victory Hall & Parlor, a bar by the ballpark. Despite Breed’s challenges – and despite President Donald Trump’s upswing, an upset to many city Democrats – Breed’s supporters held onto their positive vibes.

Attorney Timothy Alan Simon said he’s “ride or die” for Breed. A San Francisco native such as Breed, he’s seen her blossom from her days leading the African American Art and Culture Complex to take the top spot at City Hall.

“I’ve watched her be a changemaker in every capacity she’s been in,” he said.

Simon ticks off a litany of Breed successes: leading the city through the pandemic and supporting every community across San Francisco. But when asked if he thinks her message has reached voters, his face darkens.

“No, I don’t,” he said.

He said the Board of Supervisors stood in her way, stopping her from enacting policies she said San Francisco needed. Then they turned around and criticized her for failing to help San Franciscans. But to him, “she’s the one for me.”

He prays there are enough people who share his opinion to see Breed through the election.

— Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

San Franciscans may not have elected a Republican in decades, but you wouldn’t know it  at American Bites, a sleepy North Beach eatery. Dozens of SF GOP members filled in to cheer on their local candidates and watch the FOX News version of the election telecast. (They booed when CA was called for Harris)

Bruce Lou is one of those candidates. The 27-year-old Hayes Valley resident dropped his job as a software engineer last year to run against Nancy Pelosi in Congress. He said despite his support for Donald Trump — who he admits is a divisive figure — most residents agree with his stances on public safety, education, and cost of living.

Why is he going after the grande dame of SF politics?

“It’s the position that could use the most freshening up,” Lou said. “Our issues can be traced to Biden’s disastrous policies and (Pelosi) was behind all of it. She’s out of touch.”

— Kevin V. Nguyen

Aaron Peskin took a long pause after The Standard asked for his reaction to the New York Times’s prediction that Trump would be the next president.

“I’m speechless,” he said at last. “It is going to make it much, much harder for every city in America to provide for our people.

“I would much rather I lost and Kamala Harris won, but based on what The New York Times is saying, it looks like it will be the opposite,” he added.

Peskin said San Francisco and California would have to join forces with other cities and states to push back against the executive branch, and that Trump’s policies would have an outsized impact on poor and homeless Americans.

“The best defense is a coordinated offense,” Peskin said. “But it’ll make our ability to govern much harder.”

— Max Harrison-Caldwell

In perhaps the least nail-biting development in a night full of them, the Associated Press and other election watchers have called California for Kamala Harris, with polls now closed in the state. The golden state’s 54 electoral votes put Harris a lot closer to Donald Trump than she appeared an hour ago, but her path to victory may be narrowing as hoped-for victories in Georgia and North Carolina (both 16 votes) appear increasingly unlikely, if not yet out of the question.

If she’s to win, Harris may need to repeat Joe Biden’s feat in 2020 of winning Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — the three states of the so-called blue wall. AP currently has all three of them leaning toward Trump, but large troves of votes from many Democratic strongholds have yet to be counted.

— Jeff Bercovici

Polls are now closed across the city, but anyone who lined up before 8 p.m. will still be able to cast their ballot. Ballot drop boxes will also be closed at 8 p.m.

Next is the vote-tallying process. The first results from the San Francisco Department of Elections will be released at 8:45 p.m. More tallies will dribble out before midnight. Tuesday’s end-of-day count will include vote-by-mail ballots received before Election Day as well as in-person polling.

More information about what’s next in the local elections can be found here.

Our live results page is also available here.

— Kevin Truong

Stepping out of a souped-up cherry red 1960 Chevy Impala, Roberto Hernandez said he’s feeling confident he’ll be elected the next District 9 supervisor.

“I think I can win,” he said, shortly after casting his ballot at a polling place at 2859 25th St. “I ran a campaign with a lot of love and respect.”

Hernandez said he thinks undecided voters will turn out at the last minute to support him after he did direct outreach ahead of the election, particularly among those in Portola, living along Mission Street, and in Bernal Heights.

Hernandez, who is seen as a prominent figure in the Mission’s Latino community, criticized Trump’s stance on immigration, including his promise to launch “the largest deportation operation in the history of the United States,” saying that he will adversely impact businesses by depriving them of cheap workers.

“Look at the people working in the fields, the dishwashers, they’re all Latinos,” Hernandez said. “No one wants a job opening up hotel doors anymore. That’s what he’s not thinking about.”

— Garrett Leahy

At El Chato, a popular Spanish wine bar in the Mission, co-owner Erin Rickenbaker is trying to create “good election vibes” tonight. Listán negros and caiño longos (indigenous Spanish varieties — not your typical wine bar!) are flowing at the bar’s election watch party. It’s all part of the plan: Drown your election anxieties in wine!

“What I’ve heard mostly is that people have been dissociating and today are starting to freak out,” she said.

— Beki San Martin

Bilal Mahmood, challenger for the seat of District 5 supervisor, strolled through NoPa solo to knock on doors after 6 p.m., holding a Trader Joe’s bag filled with campaign literature.

Mahmood said he has recently focused on revisiting people who promised they would vote for him to make sure they followed through.

When The Standard accompanied Mahmood for the final few minutes of his jaunt, he wasn’t able to sway any last-minute voters in his favor. However, he said his team had already knocked on every door in the district at least two or three times.

He said voters in the district, which includes the Tenderloin, consistently name fentanyl as the most pressing issue facing the city. He said people across the district have told him how the drug has killed their friends, neighbors, and family members.

“It’s not just the Tenderloin,” he said. “It’s just highly concentrated there, but it affects every neighborhood.”

— David Sjostedt

Mabel Teng is worried. Her career has long been about equity, first as an activist with Jessie Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, which saw Asian American and Black communities push for civil rights, then later as city supervisor from 1995 to 2000.

Speaking to The Standard on Monday, just before the election, Teng said equity in San Francisco is challenged. For the first time since 1986, the Board of Supervisors may lack Chinese American representation. Teng said that’s particularly galling considering the city is roughly 40% Asian, many of whom are ethnic Chinese.

Teng said that even “in good times, the Asian community did not receive their fair share” of city resources. Next year, the city expects a budget deficit akin to a blood bath.

Chinese candidates across the city are facing stiff competition: Incumbent Supervisor Connie Chan may be ousted by Marjan Philhour in District 1, which includes Sea Cliff and the Richmond District. Candidate Sharon Lai is in a highly contested race for District 3, including Chinatown and North Beach. And Cheyenne Chen is in a difficult race in District 11, which includes the Excelsior and Outer Mission neighborhoods.

Teng is worried for her community, but she said, “All they can do and all they have done is campaign and be badass. And just keep going.”

— Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

The night is young, but Lucas Lehman is already feeling “queasy.”

“It just feels like there’s a lot at stake,” said the 24-year-old as he nursed a beer at Manny’s election party.

Lehman, like most voters crowded in the popular Mission locale, voted for Harris. He described Trump as a “fascist,” saying the Project 2025 agenda would harm him and his family.

Most of his attention is on the presidential race, he said, adding that he ranked Aaron Peskin as his top choice for mayor.

— Tomoki Chien

Ryan Khojasteh is challenging District Attorney Brooke Jenkins from the left. He spoke to The Standard outside City Hall.

— Max Harrison-Caldwell

Democrats were majorly disappointed in 2016 with Hillary Clinton. This time around, Harris supporters are feeling more confident.

“I feel really good,” said Sean McCalla as he watched the results trickle in on TV at Manny’s. “It looks like Pennsylvania is going to be really close. It looks like Georgia is going to be really close. But a lot of those urban centers that swing blue are yet to fully report.”

A couple seats away sat Tara DiMaio, who described being in Washington, D.C., when Trump won in 2016.

“That was insane,” she said. “It was all-consuming. … My friend got thrown out of a bar because she wore red. Everybody was wearing blue. They made her leave. And then come back. It was harrowing.”

— Gabe Greschler

For Trevor Chandler, the District 9 supervisor race has been a long haul since he launched his campaign 18 months ago.

“People told me not to do it, that there was no chance,” Chandler said, standing outside Good Life Grocery in Bernal Heights, adding that he is “incredibly proud” about his campaign. “But now look, I’m a top contender.”

He stopped short of predicting his win, anticipating he’ll be among the top two of the six candidates vying to replace Supervisor Hilary Ronen, who is terming out.

Chandler claimed he’s the only candidate who pursued a strategy to contact Roberto Hernandez voters and urge them to vote for him as their second choice on the ballot. This move was meant to improve his prospects during rounds of ranked-choice vote counting, particularly among last-minute undecided voters.

“I’m feeling very confident,” Chandler said. “I think ranked choice will make it a close choice who wins. It could come down to a few hundred votes.”

— Garrett Leahy

Breed was notably elusive on Tuesday evening. A staffer told The Standard she could be found campaigning in front of Rose Pak station at 6 p.m., but shortly before the hour, they claimed Breed rerouted.

“Unclear where her next stop is,” a staffer texted The Standard but did not respond when pressed for more details.

Another staffer said they would let us know if they “want to engage with media.”

When this reporter arrived at the Chinatown subway, two people were standing outside holding campaign signs, but the mayor was nowhere in sight.

If anyone finds her, let us know. We just want to hang out!

— David Sjostedt

Progressive stalwart and Working Families Party leader Jane Kim voted for Aaron Peskin — obviously.

But in addition to campaigning for Peskin, Kim campaigned for Mayor London Breed, who secured the number two spot on Kim’s ballot. (Kim did not fill out subsequent slots on her ranked-choice ballot.)

Kim also has her eye on the District 3 supervisor race, where WFP supported Sharon Lai. She said she noticed that race was getting less funding and less attention than other races. WFP is also supporting Supervisor Dean Preston and Jackie Fielder, among others.

She said she’s hopeful Peskin will win and has seen increased support for his campaign over the past few weeks.

“I felt a surge,” she said. “The question is really how ranked-choice voting plays.”

Kim added that despite the projected high turnout in the mayoral election, she’s against having mayoral and presidential contests on the same ballot.

“For progressives, there’s a sweet spot of participation that you want,” Kim said. “You want a high turnout of high-information voters.”

— Max Harrison-Caldwell

Insiders speaking to The Standard Monday and Tuesday were flummoxed.

The San Francisco mayoral election is unique this year because it’s the first time it has coincided with a presidential race. That’s thanks to Proposition H, a 2022 ballot measure concocted by Supervisor Dean Preston to move a number of local races to presidential years. The move threw a wrench into conventional wisdom. One insider speaking Tuesday said people in the elections business simply don’t have any models to help them predict what will happen here.

The variables are many. Alex Clemens, a communications strategist known for his post-election breakdowns, said one of the biggest unknowns is how name recognition may influence infrequent voters, especially in the city’s ranked-choice voting system.

“With a race this close and turnout this high, familiarity and name identification play an outsize role,” he told The Standard on Monday. “Given the closeness of the race, the order in which candidates are eliminated could play more of a role than in past mayor’s races.”

That may make for a strange twist. Taking Clemens’ argument a step further, one could imagine a scenario where infrequent voters — ones who weren’t captured by polls — could vote for both Supervisor Aaron Peskin and Mayor London Breed because of name recognition, even though the two are opposed on policy points (and frequently spar). Even stranger: That means Peskin’s second-choice votes may actually salvage Breed’s reelection chances or Breed’s second-choice votes could propel Peskin to the mayor’s office.

— Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

Like many campaign workers across the city on Election Day, Elijah Ball’s been out and about since 5:30 a.m., passing out campaign literature and canvassing the district with the candidate he’s been volunteering for since this summer, District 3 Board of Supervisors hopeful, Danny Sauter.

“I’m out here helping get Danny Sauter to City Hall,” Ball said.

Though he’s already been on his feet for nearly 12 hours, Ball said he’s feeling energized.

“The days leading up to today have been a lot of high and low,” he said. But today, a lot of people have been coming up to us saying, ‘I voted for Danny!’ It’s that adrenaline that is that keeps me going.“

“Vote for Danny Sauterrrrrrrr,” a little kid with a Sauter sign attached to his razor scooter yelled as he zipped around the park. It seems Ball isn’t the only one feeling the vibe.

— Beki San Martin

Jason Minix, 33, has been volunteering for Lurie’s campaign since he met the Levi’s heir last year at the wine bar where he works.

“I was really impressed with his commitment to healing San Francisco as a whole,” Minix said. “Rather than becoming a career politician.”

The Lurie campaign first made the “Daniel curious?” signs this summer for a merchant walk in the Castro, but they can now be spotted all over the city. The visible support for Lurie is one reason Minix is optimistic about his chances.

“I don’t have it in me to be cynical,” Minix said outside Castro Station. As the sky turned pink, the street lights turned on and sparkled off his bedazzled fedora.

— Max Harrison-Caldwell

Polls in all or part of 16 Eastern states closed at 5 p.m. PST, bringing a wave of calls in the presidential race — although no swing states among them.

The Associated Press has called Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Alabama for Trump. It has called Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Maryland for Harris.

Voting data indicates a deepening of preexisting patterns, with rural areas going harder for Trump than in 2020 and Harris outperforming Biden in many cities. That leaves suburbs and exurbs as key battlegrounds.

In fiercely contested Georgia, judges have ordered a number of polling places to remain open late in response to bomb threats that closed them temporarily earlier in the day. The FBI said the threats “appear to originate from Russian email domains.”

— Jeff Bercovici

The mood at the SF Dems headquarters at the old Nordstrom Rack downtown was a mix of anxiety and optimism late Tuesday afternoon. The friendship bracelet station was empty, but the phone-banking chatter was occasionally punctuated by ringing bells and applause.

“Every time a bell rings, it’s really exciting,” said Democratic County Central Committee member Lily Ho, who had been up since 3 a.m. “It means that the person on the other side has committed to voting Democrat.”

Meanwhile, Dawn Dzurilla, a member of SF’s United Democratic Club, clutched her 17-year-old Havanese pup, Penny, for emotional support. “The energy has been very positive. I think we all share a great deal of nervous energy,” she said. “There’s a lot at stake.” 

— Jillian D’Onfro

Garry Tan, the Y Combinator CEO, who has been positioned as either the savior or the boogeyman of local politics, has made his endorsements for the mayoral race. 1.) Mark Farrell 2.) London Breed 3.) Daniel Lurie.

“If you want a well-run government with cleaner, safer streets for all, vote Mark Farrell for mayor #1,” Venture investor Sheel Mohnot posted for his more than 137,000 followers.

Entrepreneur Ben Springwater retweeted Tan and told voters not to rank Aaron Peskin among their mayoral choices and posted voter guides for local ballot measures.

— Priya Anand

San Francisco school board candidate Laurance Lee is ready to fall over.

But somehow he’s managing not only to stand but also enthusiastically glad-hand last-minute voters at the John’s Grill election party. And that’s vital. Because candidates running for the Board of Education are so far down the ballot, they may as well be subterranean.

Lee doesn’t have a huge campaign infrastructure to share the burden with either. So if he wants to motivate folks, he needs to use his own two feet to meet them.

“I am just physically exhausted. It’s like the bones are tired,” Lee told The Standard. “I swear to god, I also hit my head on the counter at lunch one time and it was like four hours of trying to decide if I would campaign or not — because you have to campaign.”

The stakes are high: San Francisco schools may close. Lee wants to balance the school district’s budget and improve student outcomes. When he needs to find the energy to keep going, he thinks of the parents he’s met while campaigning who just want their schools to work.

“There was a time when I was in a ball because I was so beaten up by the system. It was so exhausting. Then I just said, you know, I’m doing it; I might as well do it all the way,” he said. “There are parents that are [speaking] broken English, Chinese, and Spanish; they were crying talking to me. It’s bigger than me. Let’s find the energy one way or the other.”

— Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

Mike Caverly and Arjun Sodhani both spent the past handful of weeks in Union Square hawking merch for presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, respectively.

“In the beginning, people were kind of scared to buy hats — it was as if buying a hat, they were doing a drug deal, you know, like ‘Hey, do you got any more of those red hats?’” Sodhani said of his Trump caps. “And now people buy the hats and put them on right away.”

While he’s had mostly supportive reactions from passersby, Sodhani said he’s also dealt with people being rude or trying to steal stuff. One person even spit in his face. He said some people have also come up to ask questions about Trump, foreigners in particular.

Today’s most popular item? “The red hat, of course,” he said.

Caverly said his Harris-Walz hats have also been a hot commodity on Election Day.

There’s “a lot of great energy” from people, he said. “Everybody’s really excited.”

While the two seller groups have very different perspectives and clientele, they’ve had a good relationship during their selling stint so far.

“We disagree vehemently politically, but they’re actually very nice,” Caverly said. “I just wish they weren’t Trump supporters.”

— Jillian D’Onfro

After stopping to take a selfie with a supporter outside Chinatown’s Rose Pak Station, mayoral candidate Daniel Lurie talked about one of his biggest backers: his parents — especially his mom. “My parents taught me you have a responsibility to uplift your community,” the Levi’s heir said.

— Max Harrison-Caldwell

GrowSF’s voter guide is seeing a huge spike in online traffic, with about 2,500 unique visitors per hour.

According to cofounders Steven Bacio and Sachin Agarwal, the moderate-leaning political advocacy group’s endorsement page is one of the most popular in the city.

They’ve seen significant traffic growth since last night and expect to reach an accumulative 200,000 visitors for this election season.

— Han Li

Feeling “increasingly optimistic” about his mayoral ambitions, Aaron Peskin said he was already thinking about who to pick for a transition team.

The D3 supervisor said he’s even more optimistic about a certain childhood classmate’s bid for the nation’s highest office.

“Nationally, this is going to turn on women,” he said. “I think Kamala Harris is going to prevail.”

— Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

SF Republican Richie Greenberg extolled the apparent success of his “Breexit” campaign — that is, the push to oust London Breed from the mayorship by courting the anyone-but-her vote.

— Joe Burn

This evening, candidates will start heading to their respective election parties to schmooze with donors and voters, all with the hope that those early mornings and late nights have paid off.

And if crowd size is indicative of anything, Daniel Lurie may be set to have a good night. The “outsider” campaign’s party at the Mission District’s Chapel — a former mortuary — cut off RSVPs at 1,036.

London Breed’s shindig at the soul food restaurant Little Skillet near the Giants’ ballpark has drawn 250 attendees so far. Mark Farrell’s reported “hundreds” of participants going to the Marina District’s Campus bar, while Aaron Peskin’s team isn’t keeping count of how many guests are going to join them at Bimbo’s club in North Beach.

“We are running a real grassroots campaign and don’t put people through the rigamarole of RSVPing,” Peskin wrote in a text, “but I have no doubt it will be very well attended!”

— Gabe Greschler

No matter who gets elected in San Francisco, the YIMBYs win. At least that’s how Corey Smith, Housing Action Coalition’s executive director, feels.

Catching up at the John’s Grill party, Smith said his pro-housing group endorsed Mayor London Breed and a bevy of Board of Supervisor hopefuls. But even if their preferred candidates lose, he said the movement has successfully shifted politicians to become more pro-housing, he said — even progressive Democrats, who used to be more reflexively anti-development.

“Across the political spectrum, the moderate-progressive divide that traditionally dominated the housing battles just doesn’t exist anymore,” Smith said.

Board of Supervisors candidates in races across the city embrace new housing as a solution to bring rents down, he said. That includes the most famously outspoken, far-left progressive of any supervisor candidate, Jackie Fielder, who’s running in D9 to represent the Mission and surrounding neighborhoods.

“Building more housing at all income levels is a Jackie Fielder talking point,” Smith said. “So I’m going to go ahead and say that we’re winning the fight no matter what.”

— Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

Polls on the East Coast have begun to close and the exit polls rolling out offer hints of how the electorate’s mindset might shape the outcome of the presidential race.

Reuters reports that exit polls conducted by Edison Research found that democracy and the economy were the top two issues for voters, with immigration coming third.

The exit polls also indicated an electorate slightly more female than in 2020 (53% vs. 52%). The percentage of voters without a college degree was down from 59% to 57%. Both trends are modestly positive for Kamala Harris’ chances.

Willie Brown, the professor emeritus of city politics, evaluates the class of mayoral candidates on the old-school A-to-F scale.

If you’re lucky enough to have the zip code 94102, your polling place is the Hayes Valley location of, no, not a public school or a laundromat, but a beacon of butter and light: La Boulangerie. A polling place in 2020, the bakery-café at 500 Hayes St. once again offered up its space for voters looking to cast their ballot and then turn around and eat their feelings.

This is not a time for a chia parfait; we’d recommend the pumpkin-cheese danish or maybe the pistachio-raspberry croissant. Or, hell, both. Asked how they felt about this polling location, Hayes Valley neighbor Egyptian Ricardo said, “I’m not mad about this at all.”

— Sara Deseran

There’s still a space for civility in politics today. Just check out the friendliness here between incumbent state Assemblymember Matt Haney, a Democrat, and his Republican challenger Manuel Noris-Barrera.

“I’m a Democrat. He’s a Republican. We’re both here together. We just met and we got to share just the excitement that we have on Election Day,” said Haney. “I told him he’s definitely the better dressed of the candidates.”

The challenger was just as gracious.

“We’re all American. This is just politics,” sad Noris-Barrera. “We want the best for San Francisco.”

— Joe Burn

City Attorney David Chiu, who said he hopes his reelection is “one of the less interesting races of the night,” shared his thoughts about what’s at stake for the most important contest on the ballot.

“I feel really good about where the race is,” he said of the campaign for Harris, whom he’s known for going on 26 years now.

“But she’s running against Donald Trump and all of his tricks and all of his lies,” Chiu added. “So we’re going to be biting our nails until the very last vote is counted.”

— Joe Burn

A colorfully dressed member of Cat Ladies for Kamala who introduced himself as Gaybraham Lincoln said he was stopping by John’s Grill before casting his ballot for the former San Francisco DA. “We have an expression,” he quipped, “which is, ‘You can pet my pussy, but you can’t grab it.’”

— Meaghan Mitchell

We haven’t seen Daniel Lurie at the John’s Grill luncheon yet — his schedule for the day is pretty packed with meet and greets across town. But the specter of a win for the Levi’s heir is quite literally hanging over the party.

— Joe Burn

The promise of free bites and booze drew hundreds of regulars and first-timers to the annual Election Day lunch at San Francisco’s historic John’s Grill, where a high school marching band provided a stately soundtrack for people queued up on the sidewalk for the event.

Among those waiting in line on Powell Street were Edie Trautwein and Jennifer Hsu, neither of whom had previously dined at the 115-year-old establishment.

“I’ve actually never been to John’s Grill,” Trautwein said. “I heard there’s wine, too.”

Aside from the wine, Trautwein said she’s eager to see what comes of Proposition K, a city measure that would ban cars from a stretch of the Great Highway, where proponents hope to one day see an oceanfront park.

“I think we need more bike infrastructure and more pedestrian-friendly spaces, especially along the ocean,” she told The Standard. “That would make it more accessible.”

— George Kelly

As an incumbent, Supervisor Connie Chan has to attend to her usual responsibilities, including a Board of Supervisors meeting set for later today. But the District 1 rep kicked off Election Day by hosting an 11-car caravan in the Richmond to boost visibility for her bid for another term. “I am feeling great,” she told The Standard while handing out leaflets at her campaign road show.

— Han Li

Outside City Hall, where a steady stream of voters were coming in to cast their ballots, Rosa Rodriguez was dressed as what she called the “Statue of Liberty in Mourning.” She said she wore the costume to give a voice to women and call attention to concerns “about our country and the freedom and liberty we are losing with a radical Republican Party and their agenda.”

—Priya Anand

As it turns out, residential garages in San Francisco do more than host parked cars, band rehearsals, and tool benches. On Election Day, some of them become workshops of democracy.

San Francisco’s elections chief, John Arntz, said the 501 polling stations open throughout the city today are located in a variety of venues, including schools, firehouses, community centers, and businesses. But a sizable share —163 in all — are in the garages of private citizens.

— George Kelly

A Redditor spotted a Waymo driving through San Francisco Tuesday with a Daniel Lurie placard tucked on the inside of its windshield.

“Now that’s something I haven’t seen before,” Lurie spokesperson Max Szabo said when reached for comment. “Must have been a supporter.”

The Redditor in question, Sophia Tung, later told The Standard she saw the sign on her livestream, which is trained on the Waymo lot at 250 Second St. in SoMa. (As it happens, Tung is something of a Waymo superfan. She even dressed up as a self-driving car for Halloween, spinning, roof-mounted lidar and all.)

Commenters chimed in saying they’d seen the same car over the weekend, meaning the placard has likely been an unwitting Lurie billboard for at least two or three days.

If you see any other vehicles deputized as mayoral campaign surrogates, let us know!

— Astrid Kane

On Clement Street in the Inner Richmond, babysitter Allison Jung wore a “Trump 2024” T-shirt that read “I’m voting for the felon” on the back. The San Mateo County resident said her life was much better under his presidency. “Lots of my friends are afraid to say they are supporting Trump,” she told The Standard. “I am not ashamed.”

— Han Li

When you’re explaining, you’re losing. It’s an old adage that I’ll bet former mayor Mark Farrell hasn’t heard, because he’s decided to explain his latest ethics scandal to potentially thousands of households across San Francisco.

Just this morning this reporter found campaign literature hanging on my front door with a full page letter where Farrell explains that his latest ethics snafu is a mere “accounting error.”

We covered it extensively yesterday, but the short version is this: Farrell signed a settlement with the city’s ethics commission, and agreed to pay $108,000 after the commission found he was illegally double dipping into a ballot campaign account, to help his mayoral run.

The crazy thing is that given the deluge of news about former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, there’s a real possibility some voters would not have heard about Farrell paying the highest-ever ethics commission settlement in San Francisco history. Now his letter ensures everyone will be googling “What the hell did Mark Farrell do now?!”

Happy voting.

— Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

Mayoral candidate Daniel Lurie is the beneficiary of a hefty, eleventh-hour contribution. Jean-Pierre Conte, who is the chairperson of a nearly $50-billion investment firm chipped in $100,000 to help the Levi’s heir on Tuesday, just weeks after he contributed the same amount to former interim Mayor Mark Farrell.

— Gabe Greschler

Rev. Dr. Amos C. Brown, senior pastor of Third Baptist Church in San Francisco, told The Standard that he was in the nation’s capital to support a high-profile parishioner. “I’m in D.C. here with my member, the vice president,” Brown said, referring to Kamala Harris.

“I’m profoundly concerned about the destiny of this nation. I’m concerned about how we have lost any civility,” Brown said, referring to Yale Law School professor Stephen L. Carter’s 1998 book “Civility” on the etiquette of democracy.

In the wake of Harris’ acceptance of the Democratic nomination, Brown called for community members to join in 100 days of prayer in the run-up to election day.

During those days, he said the primary issue he heard about from church members was about “the overwhelming number of people in this society who do not see us Black folks as human. You know, John Steinbeck said [in his novel “The Winter of Our Discontent”], ‘I want to know how many people in my lifetime I’ve looked at, but never seen.’”

Brown, who said he expects to attend an election-night watch party at Howard University, said he keeps thinking of Third Baptist Church’s founder Eliza Davis, an enslaved woman who managed to buy her freedom alongside her husband, Russell, before moving to San Francisco in the early 1850s.

“We’ve always affirmed women in leadership. We’ve got women deacons in Third Baptist, we’ve got women preachers,” Brown said, before referring again to Harris: “She’s a member of Third Baptist, because she saw a spiritual community that was inclusive.”

— George Kelly

Early on Election Day, just after sunrise, half a dozen men sat at the counter inside Clooney’s bar nursing beverages and catching up with Monday Night Football’s Kansas City Chiefs victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

In between a local television station airing political ads slamming local candidates and promos featuring Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump, San Francisco native Dave McLaughlin sat near an empty shot glass and a mostly full draft beer and watched the screens.

“I just hope we have a switch and and Trump gets the hell out,” McLaughlin said, adding that he mailed his ballot in three weeks ago.

“And with this New York trial, I hope he goes to jail,” he added, referring to a sentencing in a hush money case where Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records. A second term for the former president could make it harder to impose a sentence on Nov. 26 in Manhattan.

— George Kelly

Six supervisor seats are up for grabs this election, and people seem particularly animated about the contests in District 5 and District 3. 

“I predict that if London Breed and Dean Preston win reelection, District 5 residents will suffer. The animosity that Preston has for Breed is beyond repair,” Jones Allen said.

With District 3 Supervisor Peskin termed out, six challengers are vying to be his replacement. Each has pitched what they believe are priorities for the district, which includes North Beach, Chinatown, and Fisherman’s Wharf. 

Jordan Bowen thinks Danny Sauter has the best shot at winning the District 3 supervisor seat, pointing to an appeal to younger voters who are calling for more housing development and endorsements from prominent Democratic party organizations.

Sauter’s challengers seem to recognize him as a serious contender, with several candidates coordinating to deny him victory, the SF Examiner reported last month.

“Danny will win this,” he said.

— Garrett Leahy

Former interim Mayor Mark Farrell and Levi’s heir Daniel Lurie are the most serious contenders for mayor, according to an unscientific poll of Standard readers published Saturday.

Respondents showed the most confidence in Farrell, with 1,046 predicting he will emerge victorious after Tuesday’s election. In second place was Lurie, with 824 people betting he will be the city’s next mayor.

Other polls have shown Lurie’s standing in the mayor’s race skyrocket in the months leading up to the election, borne by a wave of campaign spending far surpassing his opponents.

Peter Johnston, who said his top issues are housing and public transit, believes the wealthy political outsider will outperform his opponents thanks to the city’s ranked-choice voting system. 

“The other three top candidates are too polarizing to draw enough second-choice votes,” Johnston said. “Breed is my obvious first pick, and Farrell and Peskin are both utterly disqualifying given my values.”

Nick Podell made a similar prediction.

“Daniel Lurie wins in RCV round 4,” he said.

— Garrett Leahy

Dozens of people packed out Manny’s on Valencia street on Monday night in preparation for Election Day over a plate of Zuni chicken and a floral white wine.

Supervisor Matt Dorsey even poured refills for the crowd gathered in the café that’s well-known for its political events.

People traded predictions, consoled anxieties, and prepared for the expected chaos for what was shaping up to be yet another close presidential election.

Castro resident Maura McGinn waited patiently in line with a camouflauge Harris – Walz hat. Rejuvenated by the recent Iowa poll showing the Democrat taking a surprising lead over Donald Trump, she said she was optimistic for Kamala Harris, but less so for her mayoral pick London Breed.

“I think the House, the Senate, and a lot of the local propositions have been sacrificed due to the national election. I think that’s where a lot of the energy is for the average voter,” said McGinn, who spent her Monday campaigning for the incumbent mayor.

McGinn worried that the doom loop narrative about San Francisco would sink Breed’s chances at winning, despite what she see as the mayor’s successes.

“My friends in Amsterdam or even North Carolina ask me if I feel safe in San Francisco. I think people bought into that safety narrative locally as well,” said McGinn. “Only recently have people noticed what [Mayor Breed] has done. I say don’t make perfection the enemy of great. Unfortunately I think Lurie is going to pull through because of this.”

— Sam Mondros

Two people who said they were campaigning for Trump, alongside a woman they said was homeless as a result of Democratic policies and a man who was filming, came to the Democratic headquarters in downtown San Francisco Monday afternoon.

Although the Trump supporters claimed to be there to “convert people to the other side,” the encounter escalated as they refused to leave. Eventually, the group, which declined to give their names, was escorted out by security after the interaction, which almost turned into a shoving match.

One of the men appeared to be YouTuber Danny Mullen, who describes himself as a comedian on social media and posts videos of himself “raiding” cities and college campuses. Mullen did not respond to The Standard’s request for comment.

— Amanda Andrade-Rhoades