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Wednesday, July 9, 2025

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Big money didn’t win in San Francisco

The city's voters roundly rejected Uber and Lyft's Prop 22—though it won statewide—and elected a progressive majority Board of Supervisors, despite the Mayor's best efforts.

Most of the votes have been counted, and it appears that the Election Day votes are not much different from those cast early by mail, which means Election Day absentees will be the same too.

The big news in San Francisco last night is that the Big Money didn’t win.

Which means the pattern we have seen, held. Propositions F, I and L—the three major tax measures on the ballot—all passed. Prop. I—the plan to require major real estate owners to pay their fair share of taxes to the city, and which the Big Money attacked furiously—won handily.

Connie Chan narrowly won in D1. Dean Preston has clearly won in D5. Myrna Melgar won in D7. Ahsha Safai was be re-elected in D11.

That means the progressives will maintain their majority on the board, although possibly not the same eight-vote majority they (sometimes) had.

A measure that the mayor opposed to split up the Department of Public Works has passed easily.

The mayor announced on Election Day that her top priorities were electing Marjan Philhour in D1 (not happening right now), electing Vallie Brown in D5 (not going to happen), electing Joel Engardio or Melgar in D7 (Melgar won, the mayor’s second choice) and re-electing Safai (that’s happened.)

So she’s at 50 percent, more or less. Melgar in D7 will become an important swing vote on the board, particularly when it comes to electing a new board president in January.

A nice little note: While Uber and Lyft have won their measure to overturn state labor law, 60 percent of San Franciscans vote No on 22. Something for our local officials to consider when they think about regulating tech companies in the future.

For more of our election night coverage, check our election night feed, with updates from dozens of journalists on local, state, and national elections.

Tim Redmond
Tim Redmond
Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.

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