Getting into Election Day, the race for San Francisco mayor remained so tightly contested that the majority political observers anticipated it may take days to find out who received.
In the long run, it solely took one.
Daniel Lurie seized a commanding lead that evening — and as extra ballots have been counted all through the remainder of the week, it proved to be insurmountable.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed rapidly conceded the mayoral race to Lurie after extra ballots have been counted Thursday.
At a victory celebration in St. Mary’s Sq. on Friday, Lurie repeated the theme that he struck on election evening — it’s a brand new day in San Francisco.
“I’m going to work with all people to show our metropolis round who’s dedicated to alter, who’s dedicated to accountability,” Lurie mentioned.
Within the first up to date rely launched by the Division of Elections after Election Day, Lurie retained a large lead over Breed in ranked-choice voting, leaving little probability for the incumbent mayor. Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin remained in third place, and former interim Mayor Mark Farrell, who conceded on election evening, was in fourth.
Following that batch of outcomes Thursday, Breed conceded the election and Lurie claimed victory.
In an announcement posted on social media, Breed wrote that she had referred to as Lurie to congratulate him and pledged to assist guarantee a clean transition between administrations.
“I’ve all the time labored to be a Mayor for all San Francicans,” Breed wrote. “I wish to thank the entire Metropolis workers who’ve labored tirelessly to enhance this Metropolis for the final six years. I’m the Mayor – however you all are doing the exhausting work day-after-day and the Metropolis is on the rise.”
Given his inexperience in authorities, a central query now swirling round Lurie is who he’ll encompass himself with in Metropolis Corridor. On Friday, he provided few hints.
“We’ve began an aggressive seek for a world-class administration that displays the fervour and the variety of the San Franciscans they’ll serve,” Lurie mentioned, including later that he’s searching for expertise nationwide.
San Francisco’s presumptive Mayor Daniel Lurie is greeted by supporters after talking at a press convention in San Francisco.
Jeff Chiu/Related Press
Talking to reporters Thursday evening, Breed maintained the identical upbeat disposition about The Metropolis’s future that she maintained all through the marketing campaign, promising that San Francisco is “on the rise.”
“In the end, what I’ve had as mayor of San Francisco is an actual present,” Breed mentioned.
Explaining her determination to rapidly concede the race, Breed defined that the votes demonstrated that — barring a miracle — she would lose.
Provided many alternatives by reporters wanting to dissect the election, Breed demurred, as a substitute stressing the identical themes she struck in her preliminary assertion — making certain a clean transition of energy is important for San Francisco.
“The marketing campaign needs to be behind us, and we have to transfer ahead as a metropolis,” Breed mentioned.
Requested if the concession was essentially the most tough speech she’s ever made, Breed mentioned no and rapidly positioned it in perspective, noting that she additionally addressed The Metropolis following the demise of former Mayor Ed Lee, the demise of Public Defender Jeff Adachi, uprisings within the wake of George Floyd’s homicide and to announce the primary COVID-19 shutdown.
At his outcomes watch social gathering on election evening Tuesday, Lurie touted the early totals as proof his message — that Metropolis Corridor “insiders” had led authorities astray — had resonated with San Franciscans determined for change.
“I began this marketing campaign not as a politician, however as a dad who couldn’t clarify to my youngsters what we have been seeing on our streets, and what they have been seeing on our streets,” Lurie informed supporters on election evening. “If you love one thing as a lot as all of us love San Francisco, you battle for it, and it’s time to roll up our sleeves regardless of who’s elected.”
Lurie, an inheritor to the Levi Strauss fortune, invested greater than $8.6 million of his personal cash into the marketing campaign. He additionally earned monetary backing from his mom, Mimi Haas, who invested $1 million into an impartial expenditure committee shaped to help his candidacy.
The committee additionally earned main contributions from individuals corresponding to billionaire businessman Jan Koum. By the tip of the race, it had spent greater than double what another impartial committee within the race had, in response to campaign-finance disclosures.
Lurie informed reporters Friday that he plans to position his varied holdings right into a belief, and doesn’t anticipate accepting the mayor’s wage, though he mentioned he has to work with the Metropolis Legal professional’s Workplace to take action.
However Lurie’s self-investment and help from rich elites was evidently not a turnoff for a lot of voters, regardless of Breed’s elevated efforts to spotlight it.
Mayor London Breed endorsed by Chinatown neighborhood leaders for reelection, at Hon’s Wun-Tun Home restaurant in San Francisco on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024.
Craig Lee/The Examiner
Three measures the Board of Supervisors president sponsored have been main early Thursday, and a vocal critic’s proposition was trailing
Regardless of huge spending on its behalf, the measure, which might get rid of half of San Francisco’s commissions and strengthen the facility of the mayor, was shedding.
Almost 73% of the counted votes supported passage of the $790 million measure
Breed, the one candidate within the race who rents her dwelling, aligned herself with The Metropolis’s yes-in-my-backyard — or YIMBY — pro-housing-development motion. She additionally backed Proposition Ok, the divisive poll measure that proposed changing higher Nice Freeway between Sloat Boulevard and Lincoln Means right into a everlasting public recreation house.
Regardless of low approval scores and excessive voter dissatisfaction with the present state of The Metropolis, Breed framed herself because the steward of San Francisco’s post-COVID rebirth. She touted The Metropolis’s current progress in mitigating fentanyl overdoses, decreasing crime and decreasing tent encampments.
The litany of difficulties Lurie will face is daunting, and it stays to be seen how lengthy a leash San Franciscans will present him to repair them.
Lurie constructed his marketing campaign on the promise that he’s not solely a relative outsider — in distinction with the longtime politicians who dominated the race — however that he’s a person with a plan for all of The Metropolis’s woes.
He was cautious to make sure that he constructed all of those proposals with the help of consultants, whose endorsements he touted as he launched them — a former metropolis planning chief for his housing plan, the chief of a housing nonprofit for his homelessness plan and a former prosecutor for his plan to fight drug dealing.
Outlining these plans is one factor, however implementing them is one other.
The Metropolis has seen progress this 12 months in its battle towards a extreme fentanyl overdose epidemic, however the charge of fatalities stays alarmingly excessive, and the drug’s impression stays evident to anybody who strolls down Market or Mission Road.
On Friday, Lurie reiterated his promise to declare a state of emergency that can enable The Metropolis to marshal assets to deal with the epidemic, and he promised to carry drug sellers “accountable.”
Crime has been a driving power behind the reshaping of San Francisco politics within the final two years, beginning with the recall of District Legal professional Chesa Boudin in 2022 — but additionally in accelerating voters’ dissatisfaction with metropolis authorities and its chief, Breed.
Mayor-Elect Daniel Lurie strolling by Chinatown, San Francisco on Friday, Nov. 8, 2024.
Craig Lee/The Examiner
Lurie has pledged to totally workers The Metropolis’s understaffed police division, partially by creating housing for first responders. He’s promised to scale back The Metropolis’s troublesomely lengthy 911 call-response occasions, and to open a downtown police district to assist fight retail theft.
Among the many pillars of his public-safety plan is a coverage of asking courts to geomonitor individuals launched from custody and prohibit them from returning to the neighborhoods wherein they have been accused of dealing medication.
On Friday, he deflected a query about whether or not he would hearth police Chief Invoice Scott, as former interim Mayor Mark Farrell had pledged to do if elected. As a substitute, Lurie mentioned he would meet with Scott and each different metropolis division head.
Transit officers have highlighted sluggish and regular progress of their march to get well pre-pandemic ridership, however the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Company faces a fiscal cliff and not using a clear rescue plan.
The transit system’s struggles are largely a mirrored image of a torpid downtown that has did not recapture its pre-pandemic vitality.
In the meantime, ranges of homelessness stay stubbornly excessive. And whereas Breed touted The Metropolis’s means to clear main tent encampments after it was unrestrained by a U.S. Supreme Court docket determination earlier this 12 months, it’s unclear whether or not lots of the individuals sleeping in tents at the moment are simply dwelling in vehicles or dwelling tenuous existences in another means.
Lurie has promised to quickly develop shelter and open 1,500 new beds inside six months of taking workplace. It’s an formidable aim, and he has but to reveal exactly the place all of those new shelters could be positioned. At marketing campaign occasions, he inspired San Franciscans to contemplate the place they want to see shelters of their neighborhoods, arguing that each nook of The Metropolis has to do its half in change for streets he promised could be saved clear of encampments.
The Metropolis can be underneath the state’s watchful eye because it embarks on a plan to construct greater than 80,000 new houses by the tip of 2031. Amongst its rapid priorities is implementing a rezoning program that can pave the best way for all of these new models. Lurie has referred to as for a plan that may enable for extra six- to eight-story buildings alongside transit corridors, however he additionally positioned an emphasis on decreasing San Francisco’s notoriously lengthy timelines for venture approvals.
There are additionally points which are much less inside Lurie’s management to repair, however will nonetheless be prime of thoughts for voters. They embody a public-school district that, sooner or later, may resume its efforts to shut faculties.
Lurie promised Friday to work intently with new SFUSD superintendent Maria Su.
A person, who declined to provide his title, reacts whereas watching election outcomes replace on a jumbo display tv in San Francisco on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024.
Noah Berger/Related Press
Other than every thing he’s up towards inside his personal borders, Lurie must cope with a second Donald Trump administration that many say will make San Francisco — lengthy a poster little one of the political left — a goal as soon as once more.
“Beneath my watch, San Francisco will rise up for the rights of all of our neighbors,” Lurie promised. “We are going to by no means flip a blind eye to racism, bigotry or anti-Asian hate.”
Lurie steered focus again to addressing San Francisco’s issues however, pressed by reporters, Lurie elaborated that relating to immigrants involved about deportation threats or LGTBQ youth, his message is “I’ll have all people’s again right here in San Francisco.”
“These communities could have an ally in me,” he mentioned.
