Levi Strauss heir and former anti-poverty group Tipping Point Community CEO Daniel Lurie just submitted preliminary filings to run for SF mayor in 2024, and he’s expected to officially announce on Tuesday.

It has not been a well-kept secret that Daniel Lurie, a Levi Strauss heir and one-time CEO of the Tipping Point Community nonprofit that pledged $100 million to fight homelessness, was planning to run for San Francisco mayor in 2024. The SF Standard reported in July that Lurie was putting out feelers for a campaign, and the Standard's sources said he had already decided to run.

And now it’s basically official that he’s running. The Chronicle reports that Lurie filed paperwork for a “Daniel Lurie for Mayor 2024” campaign on Thursday, which you can see for yourself in SF Ethics Commission filings.

Lurie is the son of Mimi Haas, who married the late Peter Haas, who is Levi Strauss’s great-grandnephew. As such, Lurie is a Levi Strauss heir. He has no role with that company, he’s just an heir to the founding family. He also toyed with a run for mayor in 2017, but demurred, and ultimately London Breed beat Mark Leno in that race.

But Lurie was chairman of 2016’s Super Bowl 50 host committee, which initial reports indicated left SF taxpayers with a bill, but later revisions by the SF City Controller's Office said netted a $2 million profit. That game was of course played at a stadium named after Levi’s. With the Super Bowl coming back to the Bay Area in 2026, that could either help or hurt Lurie’s political fortunes.

Having stepped down as Tipping Point CEO in 2020, Lurie’s latest pursuit has been something called the Civic Joy Fund, which he co-founded with Manny Yekutiel of Manny’s, to do Adopt-A Block projects and such. And in hindsight, that may have been the soft launch of his mayoral campaign, as he’s built an email list, and the Chronicle obtained the email he sent subscribers on September 7.

“As we move forward, I’m excited to share a new journey I’m embracing that aligns with our shared passion and commitment to San Francisco,” he said in the email. “I believe that a positive future for San Francisco is within reach. I’m enthusiastic about the mission ahead, and I hope you’ll consider being an early part of what we’re building.”

Time for some game theory. Breed is likely running again in November 2024, and last we heard, she was not polling particularly well. Supervisor Ahsha Safai has also declared, so with Lurie we would have three moderates splitting the moderate vote. And the tech PAC GrowSF has written favorably of Lurie’s Civic Joy Fund, so he may have inroads available with that demographic (and he’s from legacy wealth, which may also appeal to that set).

Lurie, one supposes, would take the “political outsider” lane in a three-moderate race. But he’s not exactly a household name, and generally the business types who dive into politics have more of a resume. To become a household name, Lurie would probably have to dip into his own fortune, or convince others with fortunes to dip into theirs.

Related: CEO Trying To Raise $100 Million For Homeless Reportedly Considering Run For Mayor [SFist]

Image: @DanielLurie via Twitter