In a very-low-turnout election Tuesday, SF voters handed Mayor London Breed a couple of victories on police powers and drug screening for welfare recipients, while an affordable housing bond she abandoned is still too close to call.
There are still plenty of votes to be counted in Tuesday’s primary elections, but as of Wednesday morning, the current official SF election tallies show little real suspense remaining outside the fate of the $300 million affordable housing bond called Prop A.
While Prop A is currently ahead by a seemingly huge 71%-29% margin, it needs to pass by an also-huge two-thirds majority of 66%. So it’s only got a 5% cushion with lots more votes to count — but we’ll know more with the next SF Department of Elections update at 4 pm today. (And as things stand now, Tuesday's turnout has barely cracked 20%, which is dismally low.)
But pretty much all of the other ballot measures have such overwhelming leads or deficits that media outlets call them with confidence. And KTVU reports that the London Breed-backed ballot measures all won handily, which Breed will certainly tout as some sign that she has enormous voter support. Though notably, Breed backed off her initial support of Prop A, which may hurt its odds.
Big night for SF Mayor Breed - two of the measures she placed on the ballot, Props. E and F, have passed. Her third measure, Prop C, is leading in early returns.
— J.D. Morris (@thejdmorris) March 6, 2024
"This is a really good night for London Breed," state Sen. Scott Wiener said after this clip. pic.twitter.com/RpcGCo5Gg1
The two measures that Breed campaigned hard for were Prop E, which gives SFPD more powers and surveillance tools, and Prop F, which will require drug screening for government assistance benefits. Prop E currently has more than a 20 percentage-point lead (60%-40%). Prop F has an even bigger lead (63%-37%). In the above video, Breed also spikes the football over the apparent defeat of Prop B, the so-called “cop tax” that she did not support.
“This is a really good night for London Breed,” state Senator Scott Wiener said at an election party he attended with Breed.
But her “really good night” may be a short-lived sugar high. The above named-measures all got unanimous, overwhelming financial support from the tech donor class of guys like Ron Conway, Chris Larsen, and Garry Tan. That will not be the case for her November reelection campaign, where she’s running against a wealthy heir and a venture capitalist, so moderate support and money will be splintered. (And indeed, her mayoral opponent Daniel Lurie raised half a million bucks to fuel Prop E’s victory.)
It’s much closer with office-to-housing conversion measure Prop C, which Breed also backed, though not as aggressively. Prop C is currently ahead 54%-46%.
Meanwhile, the broadly appealing Prop D ethics reform measure and the Prop G eighth-grade algebra measure have overwhelming leads of nearly 70 percentage points or more.
For now, at least, San Francisco can no longer be called a progressive city. https://t.co/VaJxR9tCZm
— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) March 6, 2024
The Chronicle is spinning Tuesday’s results by saying “San Francisco can no longer be called a progressive city,” which seems hyperbolic and clickbait-y. Certainly the moderates did very well in DCCC elections, though the real-world effect of that body is highly debatable (and without Googling, how many people even know what the letters DCCC stand for?). Well over half of the votes in those races were “Under Votes,” meaning voters didn’t vote for the full number of candidates, if any of them at all.
UPDATE: Superior Court Judge Michael Begert won a new six-year term Tuesday over attorney Albert "Chip" Zecher.
— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle) March 6, 2024
Another judge, Patrick Thompson, held a narrow lead over Deputy District Attorney Jean Myungjin Roland, with many votes still to be counted.https://t.co/h7qOzAipRz
And that spin also ignores that a progressive-backed judge won pretty handily, and the other progressive-backed judge IS currently ahead of his opponent by a small margin. Moderate groups spent heavily and campaigned heavily against the progressive-backed incumbent judges, in what may prove a wholly unsuccessful effort.
Again, there are more votes yet to be counted; consider that there’s same-day voter registrations to go through, and some number of vote-by-mail ballots that have not even arrived yet. We’ll know more a little after 4 pm Wednesday. But as things stand, the only matters still in question appear to be the affordable housing bond, a judge’s seat, and maybe the office-to-housing conversion measure.
Related: A Guide to Your March 5th SF Ballot Measures, Which London Breed’s Fingerprints Are All Over [SFist]
Image: Joe Kukura, SFist