New Mayoral Poll Finds 60% Of San Francisco Residents Disapprove Of Mayor London Breed

A new poll released during the weekend found that the majority of San Francisco residents are unhappy with Mayor London Breed and the direction that the city is going. Only 1/3rd of all residents have a favorable opinion of the Mayor.

Since becoming Mayor in July 2018, following a special election caused by the death of Mayor Ed Lee, Breed has overseen the rapid deterioration of San Francisco. The crime rate and reported drug usage have gone up significantly during her tenure, a well as very high costs, with many businesses and residents fleeing the city. Not helping matters is the SFPD being severely understaffed, a number of lax laws, and costly programs currently being considered despite a huge budget deficit.

More recently, the tech boom finally ground to a halt post-COVID, with many tech firms either implementing more work from home schedules, or massively reducing the number of positions in the city. This has only worsened the crime situation in the city, with a record number of office complexes reporting a high number of vacancies.

While Breed has attempted some solutions, such as trying to entice businesses back down and getting more overtime pay to SFPD officers, they haven’t been working as many underlying problems, such as high tax rates and loose criminal laws, keep many problems in place.

Despite all these issues, Breed is still seen by many in the Democrat party as a candidate for the future, with Governor Gavin Newsom even having her as one of the top candidates to replace Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) should the Senator retire early. Breed even still had above a 50% approval percentage by voters until last year, when her unfavorable rating finally went above 50% for her for the first time in a poll.

However, the new San Francisco Deputy Sheriff’s Association/Probolsky Research poll found that Mayor Breed and the overall situation in the city are seen as even more unfavorable than previously thought. According to the poll, 73% of residents think that the city is not on the right track, only 8% think that the city is on the right path, and 19% are unsure.

57% of voters also viewed Breed unfavorably, with only 33% viewing her in a favorable light, and 10%responding “Don’t know.”

This was similar to the results of overall job approval, with 60% disapproving of her job as Mayor, 36% approving it, and 4% being unsure. Overall, a large majority of residents simply do not like where Mayor Breed is taking the city.

“There’s a narrative that is out there that just says things have gone to s—,” said Adam Probolsky, who conducted the survey, in a statement on Monday. “That’s, to some degree, a self-fulfilling prophecy among voters because everybody’s telling us that everything is bad. That narrative is pervasive, and that’s part of why the mayor, the supervisors, other elected, are not going to be held in high regard at this moment.”

Jen Price, a political advisor who has helped guide some Bay Area lawmakers in the past on popularity downturns, added in a Globe interview on Monday that “Breed’s continuing fall isn’t all that surprising. Crime is a huge problem, people can’t afford housing, drug use is high, the police are in a bind, and so many businesses are leaving the city now. And that’s only a few of the problems. But long-term, this shows that Breed is now very vulnerable to any challenge against her. There is a Mayoral race on the horizon, not to mention other races she may attempt in the near future. Voters in San Francisco won’t forget what she did to the city, and any election will be a tough one, Also, really long term, she won’t exactly get any streets named after her with this kind of popularity.”

“And it’s odd. Normally a female, woman-of-color in a higher office would be getting a lot of attention and praise. She is getting the attention, but it is anything but praise.”

Mayor Breed is expected to announce new measures to help the city bounce back soon.