The race for Number Two is heating up—and Mark Farrell is in the middle of it all.
With ranked choice voting in SF, and a really, really close mayoral race, where four candidates are within the margin of error in the polls, two things are critical:
The candidate who wins needs enough first-place votes to keep them from early elimination—and enough second-place votes to put them over the top.
For months, political observers have been wondering which candidates might endorse each other, and for the most part, what we’ve seen is: Nothing.
That’s because the three running hard to the right, Farrell, Mayor London Breed, and Daniel Lurie, really dislike each other. In fact, their attacks on each other might wind up helping Sup. Aaron Peskin.
The major candidate most likely to be eliminated first is Sup. Ahsha Safai, who is far behind the other four in the polls. So Safai’s second-place votes will be a big prize.
That’s why Farrell just announced an alliance with Safai, who said the former supervisor and interim mayor had been good on labor issues (some of the city’s largest unions would almost certainly disagree with that).
From Farrell:
“While Ahsha and I do not agree on every issue, we share similar values and a shared belief that San Francisco will be stronger without London Breed as Mayor,” Farrell said in a statement. “Our alliance broadens both of our bases of support citywide and in a race where a percentage point could make the difference between winning or losing is extremely valuable.”
I don’t know what Safai gets out of the deal; there’s no foreseeable scenario in which Farrell is eliminated before Safai. Naturally, the speculation is that Safai would get a job in a Farrell Administration, but when he leaves office as a former supervisor with a strong background in labor, he will have no problem finding employment.
What he hasn’t gotten is any indication that Farrell will move away from his stance as the furthest right candidate in the race. That puts Safai, who is way more to the center, in the position of urging his working-class constituents to vote for someone who is aligned with the agenda of the billionaires.
Another twist: Breed is now hyping the support of former Sup. Jane Kim, who ran against her, and other progressives including Sups. Hillary Ronen and Shamann Walton.
Kim and Ronen have endorsed Peskin number one. Walton has endorsed both Peskin and Breed.
Neither Peskin nor Breed has endorsed the other candidate.
This particular RCV strategy has exactly one purpose, insiders tell me: Block Farrell at all costs. If that means four more years of a mayor who progressives have repeatedly, often vociferously, opposed, that’s political reality; they fear Farrell could win, and would be much worse.
After all that progressive support, Breed hasn’t shown much of any signs that she is moving even a little to the left. She’s still withholding money from nonprofits (although she agreed in the budget deal to fund them), she’s still talking about arresting our way out of the homeless and opioid crisis, she’s still not funding affordable housing at a site that’s been designated for that use for more than two decades … she did say she would support Sup. Aaron Peskin’s new rent control law, but only after he amended it in a way that defused opposition from the Yimbys—and after it passed the board unanimously, meaning a veto would be pointless.
We don’t know what, if anything, Safai gets from endorsing Farrell. We do know what progressives are getting from Breed: Nothing—except the prospect of keeping Farrell out of Room 200.
All of which could help Lurie, who got the Chron’s endorsement today in an editorial that’s anti-union and pro-deregulation, a classic neoliberal approach that’s responsible for the mess we are in today.
Former state Senator Mark Leno and former Sup. Matt Gonzalez are both strong Peskin supporters, but have endorsed Lurie number two—and the only thing Lurie is offering progressives is blocking Breed’s re-election.
We’re seeing this play out in local supes races, too. In D11, Chyanne Chan and E.J. Jones have endorsed each other, in an effort to keep Michael Lai, who is the billionaire candidate, from taking office. Same in D3, where Sharon Lai and Moe Jamil have a one-two RCV strategy against Danny Sauter.
In D9, Jackie Fielder has endorsed Stephen Torres, who has not endorsed her back although he said he’s “supportive;” he gave me a convoluted explanation for why. The main billionaire-backed candidate is Trevor Chandler.
The there’s Roberto Hernandez, who said at a Debate Oct. 8 that he’s supporting Peskin, Safai, and Breed—he said them in that order. But he was recently on the streets campaigning with Breed’s folks—which might not help him in D9, where the mayor is not that popular.
Let me add a twist to all of this:
Imagine if the billionaire-backed boys—Chandler, Sauter, Bilal Mahmood, and Lai—or most of them, get elected, and the tech overlords take control of the Board of Supes.
Then imagine President Kamala Harris offers Breed a senior post in her administration, and Breed accepts.
That means the board will choose the next mayor—and if the TogetherSF crowd is in control, that could be Mark Farrell.
Full disclosure: Both of my kids work on the Peskin for Mayor campaign.
