Progressives may have lost in the mayoral election, but they certainly won in District 9 where Jackie Fielder beat the second-place candidate by nearly 3,000 votes, according to early results released Thursday. A few miles north, in District 3, they weren’t so lucky — Danny Sauter beat out Sharon Lai to succeed Aaron Peskin.
Fielder, a climate advocate and democratic socialist, co-founded the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition, co-managed a campaign fighting a San Francisco Police Department use-of-force policy, and most recently worked as the co-director of Stop the Money Pipeline. Trevor Chandler, a former Citizen app employee, got the second-highest number of votes.
Nonprofit executive Danny Sauter challenged Board President Peskin in the 2020 race for D3 supervisor and got 43% of final round votes. This time around, he beat Lai, a former transportation official, handily. Lai was backed by progressive organizations including the Working Families Party.
Other districts are too close to call. Supervisor Dean Preston is trailing Bilal Mahmood by about 1,150 votes in District 5. Grow SF put up a huge billboard in the district promising Mahmood would turn the vacant Divisadero car wash site into housing. Mahmood, a moderate backed by tech money, has leveraged business-friendly donors’ frustration with the democratic socialist incumbent.
Meanwhile, the District 1 race is currently tied — both incumbent Connie Chan and challenger Marjan Philhour have received 11,001 votes (including ranked-choice tally).