The political dirty tricks are ramping up as we head to November’s SF mayoral election, as fake campaign websites are popping up in hopes of dragging down some of the leading candidates for mayor.

We reported about four months ago on a fake Mark Farrell for Mayor website, which uses the domain MarkFarrellForMayor.com, but contains all sort of mud-slinging and political attacks against SF mayoral candidate Mark Farrell. The site was clearly built and launched by someone who does not care for Mark Farrell, but there's been no confirmation on which corner the mud was being slung from.

Then in the last couple of weeks, more of these fake “campaign” websites have popped up, clearly as online political attacks against the opponents named by the website. On August 31, someone launched a website called DanielLurieForSFMayor.com, which is clearly just a low-budget hatchet job with unflattering accusations against the mayoral candidate Lurie. And the local media just noticed a new website called StopMAGAMarkFarrell.com that paints Farrell as some sort of Republican right-winger.

We should note that the anti-Farrell website, which is chock full of pictures of Donald Trump, is not an anonymous hit job like the others. It comes from a registered political action committee (PAC) called Stop MAGA Mark 2024, Opposing Farrell for Mayor, and financial disclosures show the site was thrown together for less than $3,000 (perhaps not a bad investment, because it’s generated some amount of local media coverage).

And the image of Farrell wearing a red baseball cap is real, as Farrell posted that image himself in a “White Dudes for Harris” promotion. So you have the irony of Farrell being called a Trumper, but using imagery in which he’s literally promoting Kamala Harris. Still, a red baseball cap was maybe not the best choice for Farrell, as it can easily be mistaken for a MAGA ballcap. And Farrell has been called out for very Trump-y rhetoric at his fundraisers, though those comments were from a host, and Farrell has since disavowed them.

In this case, longtime local political consultant Jim Ross completely admits to being behind this website, and appears to be running a PAC favoring mayoral candidate Aaron Peskin.

“A trend [in San Francisco] I want to call out — you’ll get these people, and they’ll say ‘I’m a Democrat, but ... I gave money to Barack Obama, but ...’” Ross told the Examiner. “Then they espouse some right-wing or very conservative point of view.”

Farrell himself called out the website in a video posted to Xitter last Wednesday. He calls Jim Ross “the same guy who was a political consultant for Chesa Boudin,” also blaming “the hard left and the current mayor.” He adds that “I’m proud to be a born and raised San Franciscan, and born and raised Democrat.”  

Meanwhile, the website trashing Daniel Lurie is anonymously posted, and an obvious attempt to game Google search results on Lurie (Lurie’s real website is DanielLurie.com). It makes plenty of hay out of Lurie’s inherited family fortune, the fact that Lurie owns a mansion in Malibu, and questions the effectiveness of Lurie’s nonprofit efforts to fight homelessness. These are garden-variety political attacks.

But what is very unusual is the site also goes after individual Lurie staffers by name, as well as their past political donations and campaign affiliations. That indicates the site was built by someone pretty plugged in to local politics — as really, very few people have ever heard of these staffers. To normal voters, this might seem a puzzlingly obscure attack.

But it stands out that the only two mayoral candidates being attacked by fake campaign websites are Farrell and Lurie, the two wealthiest candidates, who seem to have a special personal animosity against one another.

Or rather, the only two mayoral candidates being attacked by fake campaign websites are Farrell and Lurie for now. There are still two full months until Election Day.

Related: Someone Who Hates Mark Farrell Bought the ‘Mark Farrell for Mayor’ Website Just to Trash Him [SFist]

Images: (Left) StopMAGAMarkFarrell.com, (Right) DanielLurieForSFMayor.com