Effort Grows To Have Former SF Mayor, Supervisor Mark Farrell Run For Mayor In 2024

Former San Francisco Mayor and Supervisor Mark Farrell received a large boost of support in the past few weeks to enter the 2024 San Francisco Mayoral race, despite Farrell having shown no prior interest in the position.

The 2024 Mayoral race is to be the first such election happening in the city since 2019, when London Breed won with 70% of the vote against two other challengers. This will also be Breed’s third such Mayoral election, having won in both 2019 and the special election in 2018 to fill the term left by the death of Ed Lee who had died in office in 2017. 2024 is noted to be especially important because crime, drug use, police expansion, homelessness, affordable housing, an emptying downtown, and the exodus of both businesses and residents have plagued the city since the last election. Breed’s support has gone down since 2019 given the compounding problems, with attempted fixes proving to be ineffective at best, and exacerbating the problems at worst.

In addition to Breed running in the race, Supervisor Ahsha Safai and non-profit founder and heir to the Levi Strauss fortune Daniel Lurie have also joined, running on more moderate leaning platforms to contrast with Breed’s more liberal stances which have backfired continuously since taking office.

Since Lurie joined the race in July, a possible fourth name has been a continual rumor. In addition, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu, Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) and Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin have all been floated as possible progressive challengers in recent months.

However, many more moderate and centrist Democratic supporters in San Francisco have been trying to entice Farrell to run instead. Farrell, a long-time lawyer in the area, previously served as a Supervisor for the city from 2011 to early 2018, and was then selected as Mayor for seven months in 2018 as a short-term replacement Mayor following the death of Mayor Ed Lee in December of 2017.

While Farrell was known a for holding some strong liberal values, such as introducing a firearms ordinance so strict that it ran the last gun store in San Francisco out of town, he was also known for being so moderate on other issues that he attracted many Republican voters in the city as a result. During his 7 month tenure as Mayor, his policies drew the ire of liberal lawmakers in the city as Farrell pushed for the hiring of 250 officers to help stave off a future projected shortage and launching major efforts against homeless encampments and drug heavy areas of the city.

Liberal lawmakers including London Breed were so outraged at the actions that, as soon as Breed was elected in as Mayor in the 2018 special election, she immediately reversed these policies. Those reversals have, in part, been blamed for the worsening conditions in the city in the 2020s, especially when it comes to crime and homelessness.

Growing support for Farrell

With the city in such poor condition, and Farrell the only San Francisco politician in recent years recognized as bucking progressive trends, his name has come up repeatedly as a Mayoral candidate. Efforts began small in the fall, but Farrell received so much support his name was listed on polls despite not being a declared candidate. Interest rapidly grew from there. In recent weeks, so many San Franciscans have joined the “Draft Farrell” effort that a website has even been made by supporters urging him to run.

“Farrell has been liberal on some issues, but on others he very much believed and pressed for things that would help the city,” said political advisor Sharon Lee to the Globe on Wednesday. “To many, he foresaw what could happen to the city if police and economic and crime and homeless and so many other policies continued to be unchecked. He talked the talk and walked the walk, so to speak. I mean, you had Republicans in the city liking the guy despite many more lefter leanings. That has to tell you something.”

Despite the push for Farrell in recent weeks, he has not said one way or another if he will run. In recent statements Farrell has instead said that the city cannot continue down the path it has been going and that any political decision he makes in the future would be taken with the utmost seriousness.