New Poll Finds Former SF Mayor Mark Farrell Leading Current Mayor London Breed In 2024 Election

According to a new San Francisco Chronicle poll released on Thursday, former San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell is currently in a narrow lead over current Mayor London Breed 20% to 18%, putting her reelection chances this November severely in danger.

Since last year, candidates have been sporadically joining the mayoral race in the hopes of removing Breed from office. In July of last year, Levi Strauss heir and CEO of the non-profit tipping point community joined the race. Later in 2023, Supervisor Ahsha Safai joined as well. However, despite 60% of residents in the city disapproving of the Mayor, largely over how she has handled crime, homelessness, drug usage, the economy, businesses leaving the city, and a multitude of other problems plaguing the city, she still remained the top candidate.

That was until earlier this month. On the 13th, former Supervisor and Mayor Mark Farrell announced that he would be running for the office after months of speculation. While many of his past stances worried some residents, such as his fight as Supervisor to close the last remaining gun store in the city, his promises to not cut funding to the SFPD, hire more officers, instituting a zero-tolerance policy for all crimes in the city, and have a public safety-focused Mayoral run won many over.

This led to the new poll on Thursday. As San Francisco has a ranked-choice voting system, where three candidates can be chosen but in order of preference, the poll asked residents who their first choice would be, with first choice being an indicator who the strongest candidate generally is. According to the poll Farrell is currently in the lead with 20% of first choice votes. Breed came in second with 18%, with Lurie at a close 16%. Safai was a distant 4th, with 8%. Undecided voters made up the largest number of voters, coming in at 38%, the same percentage as the combined totals of Farrell and Breed.

Farrell leads Breed, Lurie

Even more worrisome for Breed were results showing her coming in 3rd place during the second choice voting poll after Farrell and Lurie, as well as 35% of voters ranking her as their fourth choice and not even bothering to give her of the the top three ranked choice votes. Farrell had the least number of fourth choice votes, at only 6%, putting him firmly in the lead as frontrunner.

However, the most concerning part was popularity. In May of 2023, 60% of residents disapproved of Breed. In the poll on Thursday, this figure shot dramatically up, with 71% of residents disapproving of her tenure as Mayor.

Jonathan Brown, president of Sextant Strategies & Research, noted on Thursday, “Obviously, with the number of undecided voters that we have, you don’t want to draw too firm of a conclusion. But if this is the field of major candidates right now, it certainly looks like Breed is in very, very serious trouble.”

Political experts told the Globe on Thursday that a backlash against Breed was expected and that Thursday’s figures are in line with the growing frustration of San Francisco residents.

“Lurie and Safai did garner some interest,” said political advisor Sharon Lee to the Globe on Thursday. “A political outsider and an experienced Supervisor were strong challengers, but they just didn’t have enough oomph to get past Breed, who has been in office since 2018. But when Farrell came in, as a former Mayor with a strong tough on crime approach, you know, that resonated with a lot of people.”

“You know, he is still a Democrat and does hold some liberal beliefs. But when it comes to issues on matters that residents care most about, he is showing himself to be an attractive alternative who has the experience for it and just enough time outside the political game to have an ‘outsider’ perspective to some voters. That’s why he is leading the poll. It is only February, and the election is still over 8 months away. But Breed losing in the first real poll of the race as an incumbent is not a great start for her. Her team was praying that a candidate like Farrell wouldn’t run. And today we saw why.”

More on the 2024 San Francisco Mayoral election is to come out soon.