{"id":32991,"date":"2024-04-17T13:23:11","date_gmt":"2024-04-17T20:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=32991"},"modified":"2024-04-17T13:23:12","modified_gmt":"2024-04-17T20:23:12","slug":"can-breed-and-farrell-unite-to-stop-peskin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/04\/17\/can-breed-and-farrell-unite-to-stop-peskin\/","title":{"rendered":"CAN BREED AND FARRELL UNITE TO STOP PESKIN?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by\u00a0Randy Shaw<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0April 15, 2024 (BeyondChron.org)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cAnybody telling you to vote for a single mayoral candidate just wants Aaron Peskin to win.\u201d\u2014 @sbuss, April 1<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aaron Peskin\u2019s entry into the San Francisco mayor\u2019s race has led to a lot of talk about moderates uniting to stop him. This won\u2019t be easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breed and Farrell Fundamentally Disagree<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Farrell\u2019s mayoral campaign is premised on his view that incumbent Mayor Breed has failed. From his website<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOver the past five years, I have watched our City crumble. People don\u2019t feel safe, the conditions of our streets have never been worse, downtown has collapsed, and we\u2019re the butt of jokes across America. We have a crisis of confidence in City government that needs to be fixed, and it starts and stops with the Mayor.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can Farrell retain credibility if he starts telling voters, \u201cMake the candidate who has caused our city to crumble your second choice.\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor apparently does Mayor Breed\u2019s camp. In response to Farrell telling<\/a> the SF Chronicle<\/em>, \u201cOur campaign is embracing (a ranked-choice voting) strategy\u2026It is in the best interest of SF and all of the moderate candidates to work together to stop Aaron Peskin from becoming Mayor,\u201d Breed backer Conor Johnston tweeted<\/a> \u201cIf Farrell actually believes this, he should drop out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breed and Farrell are competing for a lot of the same votes. While Breed polls best among women college graduates, both are competing for votes in the business and real estate communities\u2014which went big for Breed in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnston calls Farrell \u201cMaui Mark Farrell\u201d because he claims the mayoral rival has spent recent years in Hawaii, not San Francisco. This does not seem like two campaigns urging their followers to make the other their second choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who will get the second-place votes of Breed and Farrell voters? Peskin will get his share from both. He will also get the vast majority of second place votes for Ahsha Safai. But a moderate \u201canybody but Peskin\u201d RCV strategy could offer an opportunity for Daniel Lurie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can Lurie Seize RCV?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other candidates aren\u2019t attacking Lurie. They don\u2019t think he can win. But doesn\u2019t a moderate anti-Peskin RCV strategy give Lurie a chance to get Breed and Farrell\u2019s second choice votes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Animosity between the Breed and Farrell camps could lead moderate supporters of each to give Lurie their second choice votes. But Lurie first must grow his support so that Breed and Farrell supporters feel he could actually be elected mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When RCV Strategies Succeed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a lot of confusion about RCV. Let\u2019s look at how it can work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2010, Jean Quan was propelled into the Oakland mayor\u2019s office by Rank Choice Voting. There\u2019s been a ton of misinformation about that race, which this story<\/a> from the wonderful folks at Fair Vote<\/em> <\/a>corrects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was Quan\u2019s strategy<\/a>? \u201cWe talked to everybody, and if you had a sign for Joe Tuman or Rebecca Kaplan or Don Perata, we wanted their No. 2\u201d or to convince them to switch,\u201d said Ms. Quan.\u201d Kaplan and Quan were the leading progressives in the race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Leno and Jane Kim used a similar RCV strategy against London Breed in 2018. It almost prevailed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike Breed and Farrell, Leno and Kim never attacked the other. Some Kim supporters did not see Leno as sufficiently progressive (Leno was a \u201cmoderate\u201d in city politics but a strong progressive in the State Senate) and late ballot counts saw many Kim voters giving their second-place votes to Breed. That likely reflected voters who favored women and\/or racially diverse candidates for the city\u2019s next mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, the Leno-Kim RCV strategy worked. And had it started earlier and\/or was a bit more targeted Mark Leno would have been elected mayor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2019 SF District Attorney\u2019s race Chesa Boudin won second place votes from moderate candidates without any formal unity strategy. His election instead reflected the failure of Suzy Loftus and Nancy Tung to adopt the Quan-Kaplan unity strategy that elected Jean Quan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personality Over Ideology<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those saying RCV is \u201cconfusing\u201d because in various elections second-place votes went to candidates of different ideologies need to better understand voters\u2019 decision-making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the big picture, all five leading mayoral candidates are Democrats. All support abortion rights. All support assault weapon bans. All back increased federal funding for housing, education, and other human needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

San Francisco activists identify deep and real divisions among the mayoral candidates that many voters do not perceive. Those looking at the mayor\u2019s race through a national lens in November 2024 see all the candidates backing President Biden\u2019s agenda and none backing Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When San Francisco voters shifted the mayor\u2019s race to the presidential cycle\u2014a ballot initiative I publicly opposed\u2014it was designed precisely to get a larger, national election cycle voter turnout for our local mayor\u2019s race. That turnout brings a lot more voters to the polls who aren\u2019t very connected to the local issues driving mayoral campaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s why all five mayoral candidates should seek second and third place votes from all of  their rivals. Many voters will make their ranked choice decisions based on meetings with candidates, attending debates, or hearing from friends. The more positive personal connections candidates can make the more likely they will benefit from RCV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a mistake to look for ideological lock step in RCV voting. RCV gives candidates an incentive to treat rivals with respect; that could prove key in winning second choice votes of their supporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Randy Shaw<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco\u2019s 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<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More Posts<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Randy Shaw\u00a0on\u00a0April 15, 2024 (BeyondChron.org) \u201cAnybody telling you to vote for a single mayoral candidate just wants Aaron Peskin to win.\u201d\u2014 @sbuss, April 1 Aaron Peskin\u2019s entry into the San Francisco mayor\u2019s race has led to a lot of talk about moderates uniting to stop him. This won\u2019t be easy. Here\u2019s… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32991"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32992,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32991\/revisions\/32992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}