Let’s start off with some basic facts: Despite what it says on the Department of Elections website, Sup. Aaron Peskin has not been”eliminated” in the mayor’s race. Sup. Dean Preston has not lost. The department just did what it always does, and ran the ranked-choice-voting program on the preliminary results.
DOE reports there are 157,000 votes still to count, which means close to 15,000 in each of the contested districts. In D5, Dean Preston is ahead in the vote total, but after the RCV run, Bilal Mahmood is ahead by 956 votes in D5. Connie Chan is also ahead in first-place votes in D1, but Marjan Philhour is ahead in the RCV county by 35 votes. In both of those races, the early votes tended to be more conservative, and as the night went on, more progressive votes were counted.
Peskin is 8,800 votes behind Mayor London Breed for second place, and if he passes her, the RCV run will change.
We won’t know any of this for another day, since the DOE won’t release any more vote counts until 430pm on Thursday.
