{"id":35145,"date":"2024-07-26T13:39:09","date_gmt":"2024-07-26T20:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=35145"},"modified":"2024-07-26T13:39:10","modified_gmt":"2024-07-26T20:39:10","slug":"pelosi-endorses-democratic-socialist-dean-preston-in-s-f-supervisor-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/07\/26\/pelosi-endorses-democratic-socialist-dean-preston-in-s-f-supervisor-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Pelosi endorses democratic socialist Dean Preston in S.F. supervisor race"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0Aldo Toledo<\/a>,\u00a0J.D. Morris<\/a> Updated\u00a0July 24, 2024 9:55 p.m. (SFChronicle.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi announced Wednesday she is endorsing Supervisor Dean Preston in his reelection campaign, a valuable boost ahead of the November election.\u00a0\u00a0Colin Peck\/Special to the Chronicle<\/em><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi announced Wednesday she is endorsing Supervisor Dean Preston in his reelection campaign, a valuable boost ahead of the November election.

Preston, the sole democratic socialist on the Board of Supervisors and a longtime foe of moderates and Mayor London Breed, is running against two moderate candidates to represent the Haight, Alamo Square and Tenderloin neighborhoods. The Tenderloin has been ground zero for the city\u2019s crackdown on the open-air drug use and drug dealing, often pitting Preston against Breed. 

A spokesperson for Pelosi confirmed the endorsement \u2014 which was first reported by Politico<\/a> \u2014 to the Chronicle and Preston announced it in a news release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Preston said in a statement that Pelosi\u2019s endorsement is \u201cpowerful.\u201d

\u201cI look forward to working with Speaker Emerita Pelosi in our united effort to defeat Donald Trump and address the challenges facing our city,\u201d Preston said. \u201cIn our district, Speaker Emerita Pelosi has championed crucial federal investments in our neighborhoods. I\u2019m very grateful for her support in this race.\u201d

Since being elected to represent District 5 in 2019, Preston has been a firebrand supervisor advocating for police reform and affordable housing over market-rate developments. He has pushed for drug policies that focus on harm reduction rather than relying on law enforcement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Preston has been a frequent bogeyman for moderates in San Francisco, and he often sparred with political opponents on Twitter before he announced he\u2019d leave the site last year.\u00a0

For three years in a row, Preston voted against the city budget because he said Breed is spending too much money on the police instead of funding alternatives and because of a disagreement with Breed over spending a specific funding source for affordable housing.\u00a0\u00a0

Pelosi\u2019s endorsement came ahead of a meeting Wednesday night of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, which voted on local endorsements. Pelosi is a member of the DCCC, which was recently taken over by moderates, including allies of Breed. The DCCC endorsed Bilal Mahmood, one of Preston\u2019s main opponents.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahmood told the Chronicle in an interview that he remains confident that \u201cPreston is out of step with the local Democratic Party and the local Democratic voters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t exactly know what\u2019s going on in this situation,\u201d he said, referring to Pelosi\u2019s endorsement. \u201cWhat we\u2019re hearing when knocking on doors on the campaign trails is voters want a leader who is not the incumbent. That\u2019s our focus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mahmood touted his endorsements from state Sen. Scott Wiener \u2014 who is rumored to be seeking Pelosi\u2019s seat \u2014 and Attorney General Rob Bonta. 

Autumn Looijen, who is also running for Preston\u2019s seat, told the Chronicle that she\u2019s not discouraged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cObviously, as a woman who\u2019s running for office, I would love for the most powerful woman in politics to endorse me,\u201d Looijen said. \u201cIn the end, the endorsement that really matters are the people in the street, and I\u2019ve been heartened to see people are excited about our campaign.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the first time Pelosi has endorsed Preston. Pelosi didn\u2019t endorse a candidate in the 2019 race between Preston and Breed ally\u00a0Vallie Brown.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Political strategist Jim Stearns, who consulted on Preston\u2019s previous campaigns, said Pelosi\u2019s endorsement \u201cchanges the narrative of the race.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is an extremely influential endorsement for Preston,\u201d Stearns said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got arguably the most popular Democrat in the city \u2026 endorsing Dean. That will make a lot of swing voters in that district take a second look at why she did that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jason McDaniel, a professor at San Francisco State University, said Pelosi\u2019s backing of Preston is likely a reflection of her tendency to support Democratic officeholders seeking reelection. Pelosi has endorsed Supervisors Myrna Melgar and Connie Chan in their own reelection bids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not uncommon for people like Pelosi to endorse other Democratic incumbent politicians,\u201d McDaniel said. \u201cIt\u2019s about being a team player, lifting up the team, recognizing that members of the team can have differences of opinion, but you still support the team because you\u2019re all better off together.”

Still, McDaniel said Pelosi\u2019s blessing was \u201cstill a big deal\u201d and \u201cabsolutely is going to help (Preston\u2019s) campaign.\u201d

Preston also has been a frequent detractor of the YIMBY movement, advocating for policies that protect renters and pushing for funding to build public housing. Jane Natoli, an activist for YIMBY Action, said she doesn\u2019t believe Pelosi\u2019s endorsement of Preston says anything about her position on housing. 

\u201cI\u2019m not too worried,\u201d Natoli said. \u201cIt was a strange alert to pop on my phone, but I think there\u2019s lots of reasons that this played out the way it did. From the YIMBY perspective, not much has appreciably changed.\u201d 
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shira Stein contributed to this report. 

Reach Aldo Toledo: aldo.toledo@sfchronicle.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

July 24, 2024|Updated July 24, 2024 9:55 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Aldo Toledo<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CITY HALL REPORTER<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adalberto \u201cAldo\u201d Toledo is a city hall reporter with The San Francisco Chronicle covering the mayor and Board of Supervisors. He is a Venezuelan American from a family of longtime journalists.Before joining the Chronicle in 2023, he reported on Peninsula governments and breaking news for the San Jose Mercury News. He also has bylines in the Dallas Morning News, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Champaign, Illinois News-Gazette.Raised in Texas, he studied journalism with a print news focus at the University of North Texas Mayborn School of Journalism, where he worked as News Editor for the North Texas Daily student newspaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

J.D. Morris<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CITY HALL REPORTER<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J.D. Morris covers San Francisco City Hall, focused on Mayor London Breed. He joined the Chronicle in 2018 to cover energy and spent three years writing mostly about PG&E and California wildfires.Before coming to The Chronicle, he reported on local government for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, where he was among the journalists awarded a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the 2017 North Bay wildfires.He was previously the casino industry reporter for the Las Vegas Sun. Raised in Monterey County and Bakersfield, he has a bachelor\u2019s degree in rhetoric from UC Berkeley.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Aldo Toledo,\u00a0J.D. Morris Updated\u00a0July 24, 2024 9:55 p.m. (SFChronicle.com) Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi announced Wednesday she is endorsing Supervisor Dean Preston in his reelection campaign, a valuable boost ahead of the November election.\u00a0\u00a0Colin Peck\/Special to the Chronicle Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi announced Wednesday she is endorsing Supervisor Dean Preston in… 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":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35148,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35145\/revisions\/35148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}