Former SF Mayor Farrell Retakes Lead Over Current Mayor Breed

Former San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell retook the lead in the San Francisco Mayoral race over incumbent Mayor London Breed according to a new Emerson College poll released on Tuesday, with Farrell garnering 20.6% of first choice votes compared to Breed’s 20.3% and non-profit executive Daniel Lurie’s 17.5%.

Previous polls have shown a close race between Farrell and Breed. In the first poll released in February, Farrell was up by two points with 20% against Breed’s 18%, followed by Lurie with 16% and Supervisor Ahsha Safai with 8%.However, the addition of San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin entering the race in April shook things up. Despite sinking in popularity polls, the controversial Peskin allowed Breed to move up in the next Mayoral polls.

Since then, it has been a huge back and forth between Farrell and Breed. Breed had a narrow lead in May polling, with Farrell retaking the lead in June, only for Breed to come back in July and August. According to the last two polls conducted in early August and mid-August, Breed was narrowly ahead of Farrell in a one on one matchup in the former, with Lurie actually outscoring Farrell in ranked choice in the latter, who ultimately lost to Breed in a 52% to 48% showing.

Breed’s new homeless programs, including a new busing program, helped her move up in the polls last month. But with the honeymoon period from that waning, and crime and affordability issues peaking back up again, Breed began falling once again in the polls. Farrell, who has made those two issues a big part of his campaign, benefited from the support change. On Tuesday, the shifting support was shown in the Emerson poll, which had Farrell out on top for the first time in a poll since June.

Farrell retakes polling lead

According to the poll, Farrell is first choice with 20.6% of voters, with Breed coming in second with 20.3%, Lurie third with 17.5%, Peskin next with 8.5%, Safai with 1.6% and a whopping 26.5% undecided. When it comes to second choice voters, Lurie is in the lead with 21%, followed by Farrell with 14.7%, Breed with 12.8%, Peskin with 6.9%, and Safai with 6.1%. Like with first choice voting, Undecided voters lead once again with 26.8%. In total, Farrell overall has a slight lead across all voting choices, with Breed and Lurie close behind.

Recent crime played a major factor in voters turning against Breed. Most notably, the shooting of San Francisco 49ers Ricky Pearsall made national news and brought back the high number of crimes in the city back to the public consciousness. The Emerson poll, the first after the shooting, strongly reflected voter reaction. According to another question in the poll, Breed currently only has 27.4% of voters approving of her, with 51% disapproving of her.

However, pollsters and political watchers pointed out that the race is still anyone’s, especially with a quarter of voters still not sure who to vote for.

“This is a very interesting poll, not just because Farrell is back in the lead, but because just how many voters still don’t know how to vote,” said political advisor Sharon Lee to the Globe on Tuesday. “You know, Presidential, Senate, House – there are only a few candidates almost always separated by party or ideology. Here, it’s 5 big time San Franciscans with varying shades of blue. Of course you have one out of every four voters not sure who to vote for just yet.

“For many, they will probably decide at the ballot box or after staring down a mail-in ballot for a good week or two. Farrell and Lurie have been going at Breed over every big issue, especially crime. And like you said, a football player was shot under Breed’s watch. Not a great look.

“But this is still a very close race according to this poll, with a lot of voters still undecided. Every candidate is going to give it all in the coming weeks. They all want this. And Breed better pray that another major incident doesn’t come up, especially crime related. And you know Farrell and Lurie have people keeping an eye on anything remotely crime-related they can pounce on. You know, welcome to the home stretch of the race!”

More Mayoral polls are expected later this week.