The Department of Elections just released results with about 10,000 more votes counted, and the trends show some good news for progressives.
Sup. Connie Chan, who was behind challenger Marjan Philhour, has picked up enough votes to make the race a dead tie after the RCV algorithm; both have 11,001 votes. But that means Chan is gaining more votes than Philhour.
Dean Preston is also moving up, almost tied with Bilal Mahmood in first-place votes. But Mahmood still gets most of the second-place votes from Scotty Jacobs, who the billionaires were pushing in the final days of the campaign, so the RCV calculus shows him about 1,000 votes behind.
Still: With a whole lot still to count, and Preston closing the gap in first-place votes but not in RCV votes; it’s possible he could emerge the winner.
In D11, Chyanne Chen is getting closer to Michael Lai, only about 200 votes behind.
The mayor’s race is over. This afternoon, Breed announced she is conceding:
At the end of the day, this job is bigger than any one person and what matters is that we keep moving this city forward. Today, I called Daniel Lurie and congratulated him on his victory in this election. Over the coming weeks, my staff and I will work to ensure a smooth transition as he takes on the honor of serving as Mayor of San Francisco. I know we are both committed to improving this city we love.
At this point, the trend clearly supports Chan. Preston is less certain. The progressives have clearly on D9, with Jackie Fielder way in the lead.
We will know more at 4pm tomorrow, but really, this was just a small percentage of new votes counted, about 2 percent of the expected total turnout. There are 143,000 votes still to count.
