SF Mayor Daniel Lurie Climbs To A 73% Approval Rating in Six Months

A new San Francisco Chronicle poll released on Monday found that 73% of San Franciscans approve of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s first six months in office, with only 25% disapproving of his performance.

The poll result is a shocking turnaround for mayoral approval, as last year at this time then-Mayor London Breed only garnered 28% approval and 71% disapproval. Faced with losing as the incumbent, Breed quickly reversed course on multiple issues, including the hot button public safety, homelessness, and drug abuse epidemic problems. With her late election push of new homeless initiatives and crackdowns on encampments, Breed was out to a narrow 51% lead in the race by late September.

However, Lurie took on Breed and other candidates, including San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, leading to Lurie crushing Breed at the polls in November 2024 with 55% of the vote in the final ranked choice round. Sworn in in January, one of Lurie’s first acts was to declare a fentanyl state of emergency. Later on Lurie spearheaded a massive cut to the San Francisco budget, helping solve the overspending problems that plagued the Breed administration, while not cutting any SFPD or public safety funding. In the past few weeks, Lurie has kept up the trend of undoing Breed’s policies by cracking down on homelessness by severely limiting RV parking times.

While a Democrat, Lurie’s more moderate and hard-on-crime actions, especially compared to Breed’s actions as Mayor, have wound up bolstering his image and popularity. According to the poll, Lurie’s popularity is above the 50% mark for pretty much every demographic. This includes race, although Lurie tends to have more white and Asian residents approving of his job performance.

The poll also showed where Lurie needs improvement. While residents like his actions on city cleanliness, downtown revitalization, and public safety, he still has scored somewhat low on homelessness, drug usage and housing costs. Current figures back up some of this, like the office vacancy rate falling dramatically in Q2 2025 compared to the sky high rates of the Breed administration.

When broken down by political leanings, the results are even more stark. Only 52% of progressives approve of Lurie, with 45% disapproving. Yet 83% of liberals, 85% of moderates and 78% of conservatives also approve of his job performance. Only 21% of conservatives disapprove of his job performance, a far cry from the Breed years where she garnered over 90% of conservatives disapproving of her job performance at times.

For those in the center and the right, Lurie is by far the most popular Mayor the city has had in decades. But for progressives, he has effectively ended their long run of having their choice candidate as Mayor; they are upset at all the changes he is bringing to the city. Amazingly, conservatives are more optimistic than progressives right now. Only 38% of progressives see the quality of life improving in the city in the next few years compared to 47% of conservatives and 60% of moderates.

More polls on Lurie’s performance are expected soon from other outlets, with his numbers expected to stay high going forward.