by Randy Shaw on August 5, 2024 (BeyondChron.org)
Still A Wide-Open Race
San Francisco is less than 100 days from choosing its next mayor. Yet the race remains wide-open. Here’s (in reverse alphabet order) who is gaining ground and what the leading candidates must do to win.
I start with the big picture: Many San Francisco voters are not paying attention to the mayor’s race. I wrote about national politics eclipsing focus on local elections before Kamala Harris transformed the race. Voters are far more focused on the presidential race than on selecting San Francisco’s next mayor.
The mayor’s race will start taking decisive shape in mid-September or potentially not until voting by mail begins. That’s why polling on this race is not definitive and four of the five candidates can still win.
Ahsha Safai
Safai’s campaign has not taken off. His core problem? Despite eight years as an effective supervisor and running for mayor for over a year, Safai remains largely unknown to voters. When I ask people what they think of Safai nearly all answer, “I don’t really know him.”
It will be difficult for Safai to overcome this. His biggest impact on the outcome is likely to be which candidate gets his second-place votes.
Aaron Peskin
In Grow SF’s recent poll Peskin only got 16% of first-place votes. Yet most see the city’s core progressive vote ranging from 20-35%. Considering that Peskin gets progressives plus moderates and conservatives supporting his housing views, 16% understates his support.
Peskin can win. But he must build greater excitement among young activists. Peskin’s field team is heavily Boomers—-a progressive candidate needs broader support to prevail.
This decline in young people’s local election activism reflects a changed San Francisco. Young people have either been priced out of the city or must work long hours to pay rent. They don’t have the free time prior generations had to work on mayoral campaigns.
If Peskin gets at least 25% first-place votes and a good share of second place votes from Safai, Breed and Lurie, he can win. It’s certainly doable. Let’s see if Peskin can build campaign momentum and expand his base heading to the fall.
Daniel Lurie
Daniel Lurie has one major advantage: nobody is attacking him. When I ask people about Lurie, no one replies, “I don’t like him.” That’s very different from responses to Peskin, Farrell and Breed.
Despite running for nearly a year, Lurie remains unknown to much of the electorate. Strong “outsider” mayoral candidates in other cities— business tycoon Mike Bloomberg won in New York City and shopping center developer Rick Caruso almost won in Los Angeles—had far higher name recognition when launching their campaigns.
San Francisco has never elected a mayoral outsider. To win, Lurie must dramatically expand his first-place votes. He needs to finish in the top three for his strong second-choice support—driven by his lack of negatives— to weigh in.
Can it happen? Yes. Lurie must either get a huge share of undecided moderates and/or convince enough Farrell and Breed supporters to switch to him. Lurie’s campaign now seems to go after Farrell as much as Breed. This likely reflect his need to shift voters away from both candidates. We will know in September whether this strategy is working.
Mark Farrell
Farrell has been running a powerful and smart campaign. He is Breed’s top competitor for first place votes and his basic theme—that if the mayor couldn’t solve city problems after six years in office why give her four more—resonates across the city.
Many believe Farrell is too conservative to win a citywide election. But this assumes prioritizing public safety is a “conservative” message—which is not true in today’s San Francisco (if it were Chesa Boudin would still be DA). Farrell draws huge donations from major funders against rent control but this has not become a campaign issue.
Farrell has one potentially major vulnerability—his alleged commingling of mayoral donations with TogetherSF Action’s ballot measure. Farrell spent $160,895 on the ballot measure but rival campaigns say these funds were illegally spent on his mayoral campaign.
As I previously pointed out, stories on Farrell’s new and past ethics problems have come as voters are riveted on national politics. Expect independent expenditure campaigns for both Lurie and Breed to hit Farrell’s ethical issues hard after Labor Day.
London Breed
Mayor Breed seeks re-election in a city that has re-elected every incumbent mayor since 1991 and 1995. But public safety were core issues in both those elections as it is in 2024.
Polls show the mayor has high negatives. Most voters are not happy with the state of the city and blame the mayor.
Yet Breed is a powerful and tireless campaigner. She is the only woman in an all-men field and a black candidate whose top challengers are white men. These factors matter in a city that promotes identity politics.
What percentage of first-place votes does Breed need to win? Breed decided months ago to pursue a solo vote strategy rather than align with other candidates via ranked choice voting. If she got 35%, getting her next 15% from second and third place votes from all candidates other than Farrell would probably bring victory. 30% first-place votes or fewer would likely fall short given that she has alienated Farrell supporters and will not get 20% RCV votes from the rest of the field.
I know there’s a lot of people reading this who have been totally immersed in the mayor’s race for months. But you are the exception. That’s why the race remains wide-open.
Randy Shaw
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco
