Nearly 19 months before the November 2024 election, four candidates already say they’re running for the District 9 seat from which Hillary Ronen will be termed out, a real contrast from the other five 2024 SF supervisor races where no one has really declared.

There is no San Francisco election in 2023, which is kind of a relief after four freaking Election Days in 2022. But 2024 is shaping up to be a real donnybrook — there is of course the Presidential Election, Senator Feinstein’s seat being up for grabs, maybe Pelosi’s too, plus the SF mayoral election is moved to next year thanks to the passage of last November’s Prop H. And all supervisor seats in odd-numbered district will be up for election, too (as well as the City Attorney, DA, Sheriff, and Board of Education seats).

Three current sitting supervisors will be termed out; Aaron Peskin, Hillary Ronen, and Ahsha Safai. (Safai is reportedly considering challenging Breed for mayor.)

A peek at the SF Ethics Commission filings for the 2024 elections shows that Supervisor Connie Chan is clearly running for reelection, and the YIMBY-tech money PAC Grow SF is clearly aiming to take down Chan and District 5 supervisor Dean Preston. Several notables are running for the highly parliamentary SF Democratic County Central Committee 2024, a relative unknown named Benjamin Job-Castaneda is running for mayor, and… what’s this? We see a Trevor Chandler is running for supervisor, and according to a campaign video he released Tuesday morning, he’s running for Ronen’s District 9 seat.

Chandler quickly scored profiles in the SF Standard and the Bay Area Reporter, likely on the basis of being the only person who’s formed a committee to run for the seat. His campaign video calls him a “tough progressive, a progressive who punches back for San Francisco.” He touts his support for the school board recalls, though it may be a wild card that he’s a former director of government affairs and public policy with the app Citizen, whose controversial history may or may not portray Chandler well in the largely Latinx district.  

Yet the Chronicle puts their ear to the ground, and finds Chandler is one of four people who say they’re running for the District 9 seat. The others include Ronen’s current legislative aide Santiago Lerma, activist Jackie Fielder who scored a surprising 43% share of the vote in her 2020 state Senate race against Scott Wiener, and community organizer Roberto Hernández.

Santiago Lerma works for Ronen, just as Ronen had been a legislative aide to David Campos before she was elected. Say what you will about Ronen and Campos, they’ve been part of a mini-machine that’s won that district in every election since 2008. (Ronen beat Josh Arce by a nearly 2-1 margin in 2016, and was unopposed in 2020.)

Lerma told the Chronicle, “I feel confident in what I’ve learned about the city and how it’s governed and I would make a good supervisor and a good leader for District Nine to continue the tradition of progressive leadership in protecting the most vulnerable and fighting against poverty.”

Jackie Fielder, for her part, told the Chronicle “It’s time for Latinas, Native Americans and queer people of color to have representation on the Board of Supervisors.” The Chron adds that “She said she would focus on economic recovery, creating a public bank, affordable housing and housing for homeless people, investments in proven mental health solutions and support for educators and students.”

And Roberto Hernández, described by the Chronicle as “CEO of nonprofit CANA and organized a Carnaval celebration before the pandemic,” tells the paper  “We are in a serious crisis and people don’t feel safe,” and “We’re not getting the resources we need.” The Chronicle adds, “Hernández said he wanted to see more foot patrols, community ambassadors and coordination between agencies to respond to crime and street conditions, including the drug crisis.”

It’’s critical to note that while these four candidates say they’re running, most have not filed to run. SFist asked the Department of Elections how long candidates have to file for the November 2024 election, and the department told us they have all the way until June 11, 2024.

Related: Supervisor Catherine Stefani Has Filed to Run For State Assembly In 2024 [SFist]

Image: V. Alexandra de F. Szoenyi via Hoodline