The Greenberg Brief: San Francisco’s Political Alliances Are About To Implode

Supporting your preferred mayoral candidate is quickly becoming that much more difficult, as San Francisco’s eyes turn towards November. Power players and enthusiastic community advocates are quick to divert or jump ship. Some even make strange bedfellows.

Case in point: There are currently four prominent candidates for San Francisco mayor (though more are expected to enter the race), with their campaigns setting up in for this eight-months-long battle.

Mary Jung, long-time fixture of establishment political activism, lurked in the shadows of the efforts to recall rogue District Attorney Chesa Boudin, is still throwing her weight behind San Francisco’s native-born and now embattled Mayor London Breed. Interviewed on air recently, Jung claims Breed is still the best candidate to continue leading San Francisco, that the city is on the upswing, and we should not be changing course.

Hers is a bizarre interpretation of reality. She’s just a fan-girl.

Jung, with this view, disregards the stagnant economy and Breed’s failures on crime, drug dealing, homelessness and the ever-expanding retail collapse. Our city’s $14.6 Billion budget is insane. Long-time residents point out the existence of an  unmistakable “City Family,” the cadre of local power players through backroom dealmaking, payoffs and corruption, (along with FBI raids and prosecutions), which have infiltrated how business is done in our government. Cleary, Mary Jung seeks to support continuing a corrupt, failing status quo. We residents crave meaningful change, not four more years of Breed.

When another native San Franciscan, Daniel Lurie, threw his name in the mayoral candidate hat, much of the city erupted in celebration. He’s a city hall outsider with deep, wealthy-family pockets and serious, successful nonprofit organization experience.  His campaign has garnered significant financial donations since his September 2023 launch. Along with being regarded as a fresh start, he’s been siphoning off supporters of Mayor Breed who until now, was considered the “moderate” Democrat. Lurie runs to the right of Breed (thought still a Democrat) and similarly to the right of most candidates and elected officials. Disappointingly though, his current campaign ground game and policy proposals have been very weak, leaving his presumptive voters suddenly skeptical.

Lurie has just brought on his campaign ManKit Lam, famous for being a crucial part of the SFUSD School Board commissioner recall, who’s knowledge of and connection to the city’s Chinese voters is a much-needed addition to Lurie’s team.

Informal polls pitting Beed vs. Lurie head-to-head spell bad news for Madame Mayor. Local media echo our deep dissatisfaction with Breed’s leadership and reflect the view that as a city, we are headed in the wrong direction. So, it would appear a slam-dunk is in store for Lurie to win come November.

Well, not so fast.

An influential organization named growSF  (www.growsf.org) is very active in local politics, and supported the city’s 2022 recall fever having taken down Chesa Boudin and three pubic school commissioners. GrowSF is currently opposing notorious district supervisor Dean  Preston. This is a serious team of activists and money raisers, exemplified by their work to move voters towards more moderate democratic candidates, and away from the rogue and left-wing extremists.

But now, it appears growSF is favoring current Mayor Breed. And that’s going to fracture growSF’s support deeply, who’ve already caused blowback due to their endorsement of notorious California State Senator Scott Wiener.

Two weeks ago, a third prominent San Francisco native, Mark Farrell, launched his bid for mayor.

Some will remember Farrell was district supervisor (city councilman) in 2017 when then-mayor Ed Lee suddenly passed away. Farrell was appointed interim mayor for six months, serving through July 2018 as a special mayoral election was under way. He promised not run to retain his mayoral position – and ultimately voters chose London Breed the victor. (side note: yours truly was a candidate in that dramatic 2018 election).

Farrell’s current campaign announcement caused an even greater local visceral response than did Daniel Lurie. Farrell accomplished more in six months of his temporary mayorship than most of the previous several mayors had. He’s considered law-and-order-first, pragmatic and respectable, having business experience which Breed (and most elected officials), sorely lack.

Naturally, a large swath of Lurie’s fans has now re-focused to Mark Farrell, with informal polls showing a significant preference given to Farrell this coming November. But with the deadline for candidates to file being this June 11^th, there’s still three months until the final list of candidates is set.

Alliances are falling apart, as main players in support of local candidates are diverting as fast as candidates announce. I’ve personally fielded many queries asking which mayoral candidate to support, and as weeks pass, I’ve found an expanding and rotating Venn-diagram-like circle of voter’s overlapping influence. As of today, forty-seven mayoral candidates are vying for attention, with three months to go til filing deadline, so stay tuned as more surprises are certainly in store for the City By the Bay.