Despite the narrative that San Francisco is entering a more conservative era, unions and progressive voting guides have aligned themselves best with the choices made by San Francisco voters in the November election.
It was a change from the model in the March primarywhile more conservative political groups like GrowSF, TogetherSF, and the San Francisco Republican Party were the most successful supporters.
This time, it was the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, one of the city’s most influential and progressive Democratic clubs, which received the highest marks: approved four winning candidates out of seven and was correct in all of its ballot measure choices except Proposition M, for which the club had “no recommendation.” Prop. M adopted.
The League of Angry Voters, guide of progressive voters since 2004, approved four of seven winning candidates and 12 of 15 ballot measures. Unions, too, were mostly happy with the election results: The San Francisco Labor Council approved 15 of the 22 winning candidates and ballot measures, for example, while SEIU 1021 approved 16.
But not all races are equal: “Losing Dean Preston really hurts,” admitted Kim Tavaglione, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council. The District 5 supervisor was defeated 47-53 by Bilal Mahmood.
In addition to endorsements, unions spent more than $2 million in supervisor races: More than $1.1 million was spent in District 1, where unions supported Supervisor Connie Chan. keep your place after a difficult battle against his moderate opponent Marjan Philhour.
More than $590,000 was spent by unions in District 11 race to both boost projected winner Chyanne Chen and blow away her opponent Michael Lai. In District 5, where progressive stalwart Preston lost for Mahmood, labor only spent about $210,000.
Who hasn’t had good results in terms of mentions? The local Republican Party.
The San Francisco GOP had no success in its candidate nomination and ballot measure mentionsalthough he supported Daniel Lurie and Mark Farrell as the top choices for mayor without officially endorsing them. In March, it was a completely different story: at the time, the choice of the Republican chapter was almost perfectly aligned with the electorate, even more so than the Democratic County Central Committee, the local chapter of the Democratic Party.
The Democratic County Central Committee, for its part, also had a mixed election this time around: Its candidates won three of seven elections and its ballot measure choices aligned with voters on 11 of 15 propositions.
The San Francisco Briones Society, another local Republican group, approved Lurie became his No. 1 choice for mayor and also earned two other endorsements: Prop. M and Prop. N.
TogetherSF and GrowSF, two political groups backed by tech and real estate money that spent lavishly in the last election, scored eight out of 22 and 12 out of 22, respectively. This is also a change from the month of March, when all of these groups’ support was exactly what voters chose.
Higher turnout in a presidential election is the main reason for the difference, said Jim Ross, a veteran Bay Area political consultant. Low turnout in the March election means it’s mostly “senior citizens, homeowners or long-time residents” who will vote.
“That’s why moderate and conservative groups generally perform better in down years or in primary elections,” Ross said.
Tavaglione of the Labor Council agreed. “Voter turnout in March was terrible,” she said. Only 46.6 percent of registered voters cast ballots then, compared to at least 78.5 percent in November. “They are workers, and when workers vote, they tend to vote with Labour. »
In March, GrowSF and TogetherSF were able to focus their resources on fewer candidates and ballot measures. But in the November election, “they had to publicize this a lot because there’s the mayoral race and all the supervisor races,” Ross said. “It kind of diluted the impact.”
The two political groups, which were perfectly aligned in their support in March, began to drift apart as November approached, diverging on several fronts: TogetherSF chose Mark Farrell as its No. 1 choice for mayor, while that GrowSF supported Farrell, Race and Lurie as well. Grow SF supported Prop. I, which would increase retirement benefits for registered nurses and 911 dispatchers, and Prop. N, which would create a fund to pay off student loans for first responders. TogetherSF opposed both.
In March, the groups shared a common goal: elect candidates on the Democrats for Change list to form a moderate Democratic County Central Committee, Ross said. “It was easier to get a deal.”
However, in November, not only did the two groups split over the mayoral race, but the San Francisco Democratic Party’s moderate slate split as well. approved by the Mayor of London.
Ross called it “billionaire-on-billionaire violence” — Breed, Lurie and Farrell all had wealthy clients behind them and spent a lot of money attacking each other.
Indeed, although TogetherSF, the group that strongly supported Farrell for mayor, advised voters to put Breed and Lurie in second or third place, it did not hesitate to strive to do so. attack your own secondary choices.
As Joe Eskenazi wroteit was hard to overstate how much the TogetherSF Prop. ballot measure. D and his preferred candidate Farrell underperformed.
Farrell received some 78,000 votes, or 20.5 percent, as of November 16. Proposition D, the ballot measure giving the mayor the power to eliminate commissions and weaken civilian oversight, failed with 56.7 percent of voters opposing it; its countermeasure, Proposition E, is on track to pass, with 52.9 percent of the vote.