SAN FRANCISCO — Philanthropist and Levi’s inheritor Daniel Lurie has gained the hard-fought race for San Francisco mayor, ushering in a brand new period of management for a metropolis whose voters made clear they’re fed up with brazen retail theft and sprawling tent cities.
It took two days to find out a winner beneath San Francisco’s ranked-choice voting system, which permits voters to pick out a number of candidates by order of desire. The town makes use of a multiround course of to depend the ballots, and it may well take a number of rounds of tallying earlier than a winner receives greater than 50% of the vote. Although 1000’s of votes remained uncounted Thursday night, the hole of assist between Lurie and his opponents was deemed too massive to bridge.
Lurie, a centrist Democrat, outpaced incumbent Mayor London Breed and three different distinguished native Democrats, receiving 56.2% of the overall ranked-choice vote in contrast with Breed’s 43.8% as of Thursday’s depend.
Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, the one main candidate working as an old-school progressive, got here in third after being eradicated from the working with 21.6% of first-choice votes, and enterprise capitalist Mark Farrell, a average, trailed in fourth place. Supervisor Ahsha Safaí was knocked out of the working early after getting simply 2.7% of first-choice votes.
Lurie issued a quick assertion on social media Thursday night time thanking supporters. In an election night time occasion Tuesday, he summarized his management imaginative and prescient for jubilant supporters gathered at a music venue within the Mission district to cheer him on.
“Our problem and alternative is to point out how authorities can ship on its promise of a safer and extra reasonably priced metropolis,” Lurie stated. “And executing on these guarantees requires us to be brave, compassionate and sincere.
“It’s by no means been extra clear to me that so many individuals love this metropolis, and it’s time for us to begin making folks really feel like town loves them again.”
In an announcement posted on social media Thursday night, Breed stated she had referred to as Lurie to congratulate him.
“Being mayor of San Francisco has been the best honor of my lifetime. I’m past grateful to our residents for the chance to serve the Metropolis that raised me,” Breed wrote. “Throughout my ultimate two months as your mayor, I’ll proceed to steer this Metropolis as I’ve from Day One — as San Francisco’s largest champion.”
The transition from Breed to Lurie is a exceptional activate many fronts.
Breed, 50, made historical past six years in the past when she grew to become town’s first Black feminine mayor. She was born into poverty within the Western Addition, on the time one in all San Francisco’s hardest neighborhoods, and raised by her grandmother. She misplaced a sister to a drug overdose and has a brother in jail for theft. Earlier than being elected mayor, she was president of the highly effective Board of Supervisors.
Lurie, 47, was additionally born in San Francisco, the son of a rabbi. His mother and father divorced when he was a younger boy, and his mom, Miriam Haas, went on to marry Peter Haas, who helped elevate Lurie. Peter Haas, now deceased, was the great-grandnephew of the Levi’s founder and a longtime government on the firm. Lurie and his mom are among the many major heirs of the Levi Strauss household fortune. Lurie has by no means earlier than held elected workplace.
All through the marketing campaign, Lurie distinguished himself as a political outsider working in opposition to 4 Metropolis Corridor veterans. He pledged to root out authorities corruption, a priority amongst voters following a sequence of political scandals in metropolis departments and nonprofits in recent times.
The election was broadly seen as a referendum on Breed’s efforts to deal with homeless encampments, crime and a flagging post-pandemic financial system that lower at voters’ sense of a protected, well-functioning metropolis.
“This isn’t an election that was about an ideological or policy-based shift or rejection of Breed,” stated Jason McDaniel, a political science professor at San Francisco State College. “It’s an outsider who’s totally different and who was capable of painting himself in that manner as somebody who will do issues in a different way.”
In a marked shift for San Francisco, town’s rich tech sector performed an influential function on this 12 months’s race. Tech titans who’ve put down roots within the metropolis poured hundreds of thousands of {dollars} into marketing campaign contributions, urgent for an final result that may infuse this famously liberal metropolis with extra centrist politics.
That cash overwhelmingly benefited Lurie, Farrell and Breed.
“It’s been the billionaire election,” stated Jim Ross, a veteran Bay Space Democratic strategist.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed confronted a troublesome reelection bid in opposition to 4 challengers who stated she had not completed sufficient to deal with property crime and homelessness within the metropolis.
(Eric Risberg / Related Press)
Breed was first elected in 2018, profitable a particular election after the sudden dying of then-Mayor Ed Lee. She led town by a difficult interval that features the unsettling early unfold of COVID-19 and the following exodus of scores of downtown tech staff who, amid pandemic-related shutdowns, discovered themselves capable of work remotely — and extra cheaply — from different cities.
Breed has by no means been a bleeding-heart progressive, regardless of San Francisco’s liberal fame. However the Breed of six years in the past was extra open to experimenting with a progressive reformist agenda when it got here to fixing advanced points resembling habit and poverty.
Within the final two years, in contrast, she has develop into a number one voice in a motion to crack down on homeless folks and addicts who refuse shelter or therapy. And this 12 months she efficiently championed two native poll measures that bolstered police surveillance powers and would require drug screening and therapy for folks receiving county welfare advantages who’re suspected of illicit drug use.
Lots of her supporters famous her fast motion to close down San Francisco within the early days of the COVID emergency, a choice credited with saving 1000’s of lives.
In making her case for reelection, Breed touted current information displaying enhancements in a few of San Francisco’s best issues, notably a discount in property crime and violent crime over the past 12 months.
Her opponents dismissed that progress as too little, too late, and seized on voter dissatisfaction to pitch themselves as extra certified alternate options.
Each Lurie and Farrell promised a extra concerted crackdown on crime and homelessness and to reinvigorate the downtown financial system.
Lurie had the benefit of his household’s huge wealth to strengthen his identify recognition. He showered his marketing campaign with greater than $8 million of his personal cash. His mom contributed greater than $1 million to an unbiased committee backing his mayoral bid.
He showcased his function as founding father of Tipping Level, a San Francisco nonprofit that funds efforts to elevate folks out of poverty, to spotlight his dedication to fixing intractable issues. He stated the group has funneled $500 million to Bay Space organizations targeted on early childhood training, scholarships, housing and job coaching since its founding almost 20 years in the past.
Farrell entered the race with assist generated throughout his seven years as a supervisor, and made the case that his mix of political and enterprise expertise made him most certified to get San Francisco again on observe. However his marketing campaign floundered amid moral issues. This week, he agreed to pay a wonderful of $108,000 following an ethics investigation that decided he had illegally financed his mayoral marketing campaign with cash poured right into a separate poll measure committee he sponsored to scale back the variety of authorities commissions in San Francisco.
Peskin, a longtime supervisor, organized a strong grassroots marketing campaign targeted on conventional liberal beliefs, resembling making town reasonably priced for nurses, academics, and the artists and bohemians who’ve lengthy made San Francisco a inventive hub.
