With a total of 244,398 ballots having now been tallied, representing 50.71 percent of 482,000 potential votes, London Breed has extended her lead in San Francisco’s mayoral race to 1,861 votes.

And while there are an estimated 7,800 ballots remaining to be processed, based on the trend for the latest batch of 9,200 ballots processed over the past 24 hours, which included 7,311 of the roughly 14,000 provisional ballots cast, Breed will win the election by a margin of around 2,100 votes (0.83 percent of all ballots cast).

The accounting for the ranked-choice results, as of 4PM today (June 12) are outlined in the table above with the current tallies for the top four vote getters, including first choice votes, below:

1. London Breed 36.56% of first choice votes (50.43% based on ranked choice result tallies)
2. Mark Leno 24.66% (49.58% based on ranked choice results)
3. Jane Kim 24.03% (CONCEDED)
4. Angela Alioto 6.96%

In order for Mark Leno to pass Breed, Leno’s margin of victory for the remaining 7,800 votes would need to be around 12 percent, or nearly 3x the 4.7 percent advantage Leno was able to muster with ballots cast at the polls on Election Day.

UPDATE (6/13): Mark Leno has now conceded, which shouldn’t catch any plugged-in readers by surprise.

And with an additional 2,762 ballots having been tallied since our original post, Breed’s margin of victory has grown to 2,177 votes, which represents 0.88% of the 247,160 ballots tallied with an estimated 6,700 yet to be processed, which should yield an effective, and above average, election turnout of around 52.67% and 50.49% of the Ranked Choice Votes going to Breed when all is said and done.

UPDATE (6/14): With an additional 2,413 ballots having been tallied over the past 24 hours and an estimated 4,300 remaining in the queue, Breed’s margin of victory has grown to 2,248 votes, which represents 0.90% of the 249,573 ballots tallied and 50.50 percent of the Ranked Choice Votes.

75 thoughts on “London Breed Wins SF Mayoral Race (UPDATED)”
  1. As of 16:25 Tuesday, the Ex has not even covered this news – preferring dead people in SFGH stairwells or sports news. So, I’d guess its a wrap.

  2. Breed faces a tough agenda of a broken city in terms of homelessness, sky high housing costs, filthy streets, the failure to maintain existing infrastructure and park, scandals around the TTC and HP/CP cleanup and on and on. All at a time when tourism is slowing, development is stalling in SF (per NYT article and many items here on SS) and the potential for a drag down knock out fight over significantly expanding rent control in SF if Cost Hawkins is repealed. SF’s problems may at this point be insurmountable but best of luck to Mayor Breed in getting positive things done.

      1. Meh, he is just a troll. I did not support any of the candidates . Obviously , the status quo is not working. SF proud itself on progressive values but the way things are now, that way of thinking needs to change.

        1. The progressive values accomplished lots of good things, but seems like it’s getting diminishing returns now, and we are going to enter the hangover phase, like going from the 1960s to the 1970s.

    1. Yes, the problems of SF are absolutely insurmountable. That’s a totally reasonable evaluation of the current situation.

      1. I sense a bit of sarcasm. There are some real issues, however, SF has a lot going for it – strong businesses that want to be in the city, lots of people that would like to live there, high average incomes… the problems can be resolved but it may not all be pleasant.

        1. Yeah, I agree. SF has some very serious problems but is in a very enviable position in many ways. A lot of the worst issues would’ve been growing pains had they been properly addressed years (or decades) ago, and now have become severe. The city’s greatest risk is becoming a Monaco-style closed-off enclave for the rich, a museum and business center that people enjoy visiting but only the rich can live in full time.

          1. im really surprised one of the tech icons has not stepped up and offered a large donation to try and address the homeless issue. it does impact QoL of their workers and city in general. Donation $250M is nothing to Benioff or Zuckerburg or even Jack. $100M each would do the trick

          2. The city has and spends plenty of money and the private sector economy is flush with cash at the top of a cycle. The issue doesn’t seem to be a lack of money. And anyone giving money to any policy that ended up having some homeless people moved or inconvenienced would instantly become a pariah to many people. “Billionaire sweeps homeless out of SF” or some other such headline.

        2. Preach. San Francisco has the best economy of any big city in the US, maybe the world. Detroit would love to have our problems.

          1. And you call yourself a “realist?” LMAO. So, for a city with the “best economy” we have very little to show for it. There are plenty of other “lesser quality” cities in the country with a heck of a lot more going for them.

          2. I said we have the best economy. I didn’t say that our government is competent.

            I absolutely agree that we do not have enough to show for it.

    2. Hands up everyone who’s nostalgic for double digits unemployment rates, triple digit annual homicide counts and a stacked highway running between the city and the bay.

      1. I’d take that over second worst traffic congestion in the country and a cost of living that has driven out pretty much everything that once made SF unique. If you knew anything about unemployment, double digit rates were nationwide, not isolated to SF.

    3. I was in Union Square for the musical, A Walk on the Moon, at the ACT and the whole area was packed on Saturday. Fortunately, the tourists are still there.

    4. The threat of repealing Costa Hawkins has already put a severe chill on market rate construction for several years to come, state wide. Almost certainly CA is heading for Housing Crash II, though the specifics will be different. When that happens it will take down state economy (several trillion dollars in wealth cannot just vanish without sending a shockwave throughout the economy) and almost certainly with set off a shockwave that will plunge the US into recession. SB 827 was a long shot Hail Mary. Its failure has pretty much sealed our doom.

    5. I know we have problems, but we aren’t exactly San Pedro de Sula or Port-au-Prince yet, are we?

  3. Jane Kim ALMOST dragged Mark Leno across the finish line. It was like watching Weekend at Bernie’s.

      1. While the current margin between Leno and Kim is 1,521 when only counting first place votes, the margin is 3,511 when taking into account RCV (as one could calculate from the handy table we included above). In other words, no.

        1. Well, if she somehow made up that 1,521 difference, she would come in 2nd overall – and then get slaughtered by Breed in RCV, as not nearly as many Leno voters picked Kim a second choice.

          Gawd, what a horrid mayor she would have been – especially with the flip in D8, now giving progressives a 6-5 majority on the BOS.

          1. How so? If Kim was in 2nd place in Round 1. and Leno in 3rd place, wouldn’t Leno be eliminated in Round 8, and the 2nd choice on his 1st place ballots be transferred to Breed and Kim?

          2. No. The candidate with the fewest total, not first place, votes in round 8 would be eliminated, at which point “their” votes would then be redistributed (as would be the case in each of the prior rounds).

    1. Actually, SF progressives torpedoed themselves again by splitting the ballot. Fine by me, even though Leno is not a completely horrible candidate and Breed is certainly not perfect. I don’t think there’s much question that in run-off between Leno and Breed, Leno would have won.

      But IR voting is idiotic, and a horrible mistake. It’s confusing, and it makes the outcomes of elections ambiguous, since it robs the victor of a mandate to get something done, and makes it harder for voters to punish politicians they’re dissatisfied with.

      1. IR voting is neither idiotic, nor a horrible mistake. Is there any evidence that voters are confused or that absent ranked choice the result would be different for some reason other than that this special election for mayor that happened to occur during on a regularly low-turnout election day? (Even then, I don’t think Leno wins in a runoff).

        Also, how exactly does it “rob the victor of a mandate”? If Breed wins, she is the mayor and has the mandate to lead.

        If you ask me, I think it is ridiculous that most elections in this country are decided in a party primary where nobody turns out, such that the general election is a fait accompli and often results in someone who is not supported by the majority of the electorate. Plus, traditional two-round elections are a waste of money and lead to voter fatigue.

    1. We’re well aware that the count has yet to be completed, as we outlined above. And if we were running Leno’s campaign, we wouldn’t concede (“so you’re saying there’s a chance…”).

      But as we also outlined above, the count for the remaining ballots would have to be completely anomalous from every prior tally in order for Leno to regain the lead, hence our headline (and level of confidence).

      1. We’ll also note for those counting on the provisional ballots to swing in Leno’s favor, 7,311 of the roughly 14,000 provisional ballots cast have been counted, which resulted in the results above.

        1. ^ This is why it seems fair to call it (with 99% certainty). Most analysts thought the provisional votes would skew heavily towards Leno. In fact, they’ve gone the other way.

  4. Woo hoo, rent control will be abolished under London!!! (Hey, the Warriors used to be the laughing stock too, no?)

    1. I believe I read that London lives in a rent-controlled unit owned by an 85-year-old woman. London can be made to be the the poster boy(woman) for means-testing of rent control. The Mayor of a major city being subsidized by an elderly woman? Really?

      1. Assuming this is true, it doesn’t say much. Suppose Sumner Redstone was a San Francisco landlord. Just because he’s 95 years old, that means that all of his tenants automatically can be assumed to pay high rents to satisfy the demands of his lifestyle? Maybe London’s landlady can afford to not charge market rents just fine.

        1. it’s not about who can *afford* what, but who should be subsidizing whom off their own private property.

          1. Obviously, LLs who purchased investment properties with RC already in effect had that built into their purchase prices.

  5. While your predicted headline outcome is likely correct, you need a refresher in homoscedasticity.

    1. Good word. But “you need a refresher in heteroscedasticity” might have landed with more impact. Regardless, you’re welcome to challenge our model and/or the likelihood of it being correct.

      Keep in mind that we’re not only taking into account the outcome of every interim count of previously unprocessed ballots, but our model also took into account the difference in trends between mail-in ballots received prior to Election Day and polling place votes.

      1. You’re assuming the former, while the later is more likely relevant. Google can lead you to tutorials and tools for calculating expected outcomes with a statistically accurate degree of precision.

        1. Is this Donald? Because you’re certainly living in a factual fantasy land – the remaining votes would have to break *62.3% for Leno for him to win. *That* is the extreme statistical outlier – not the *fact* that Breed has a “99% certainty” of winning.

  6. Governor of Maine refuses to certify today’s voting results based on goofy ranked choice voting. Looks like it might be going to the courts. Hopefully sanity wins.

  7. Nothing will change. Prices will be high, supply will be low. Homeless will poop on the street and no one will alter anything. We’ll get more of the same here. Whatever.

  8. Major conventions not considering SF versus other locales, negative tourist feedback based on the street conditions, visitors saying “nice to visit SF but I’m never coming back” as conveyed by the hotel folks. Not good for the SF brand.

    Will the new mayor bring a coalition together to address quality of life issues in SF? See name link for the Economist piece.

  9. Wow. I’m truly surprised by how many people voted for Breed. Almost everyone I know voted Kim/Leno.

    SF voting results almost always come back more conservative than I anticipated.

    1. Calling a vote for London Breed ‘conservative’ is just whack. Look at her voting record on the BoS. Richie Greenberg is ‘conservative’. To call Breed conservative speaks to the bubble that you have admitted to living in.

      1. Agreed… I’m a pinko liberal everywhere else in the U.S., but somehow here I’m “conservative” (notwithstanding support for higher income taxes, opposition to the death penalty, support for universal healthcare, etc. … but I guess since I don’t hand over all my possessions to the homeless and I actually want things like functioning transit and paved streets, I’m a “conservative”)

        1. same here. Far left everywhere else. center or right of center in SF. Breed is very progressive. to call someone who supports safe injection sites a conservative is laughable.

          Btw, the explosiuon of needles on the streets of SF is directly related to the mass handing out of needles by the city. not saying its bad, but its well correlated.

          the same is true for tents. the city handed out tons of tents pre superbowl to get people out of embarcadero lower market for superbowl events, and suddenly people in tents increased across SF.

          our policies are so shortsighted. hopefully she can make changes

      2. He didn’t call London Breed a conservative. He said “SF voting results always come back more conservative than I anticipated.”

        That’s not the same thing.

      1. All the humans I know, who voted, voted for one of the candidates.

        (WTF is your point? That black people shouldn’t vote? That black people shouldn’t vote for a black person? That she didn’t “really” win because of “special interest” support?)

        1. Really? It’s OK to say something such as all the black people I know voted for Breed without some sort of odd series of hypothetical questioning. Just take it at its face value. What’s the big deal?

        2. My point was questioning the diversity of the original poster’s group of friends.

          Which appears to have gone way over everyone’s head.

      2. Black people have been voting for white people in droves for centuries (well, as long as white people allowed them that right, anyway)

      3. African americans voting for her wouldnt have helped much as the liberal policies have pushed most black people out of SF. we have the lowest rate of African americans than any other major US city. On the other hand, the gay vote almost won it for Leno. the Castro is the only district he won. THat identity politics

        1. No way man. Look at the percentages. If the yes, greatly diminished, African-American voting bloc voted more or less en masse, there you go.

    2. That reminds me of the Pauline Kael, Nixon quote. Here’s one version of it:

      ‘I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.’”

    3. To rebut, I’m truly surprised that Leno came some close winning. No one I know voted for him or Kim.

      Personally his partnering with Kim dropped him from consideration for me.

    4. Breed is very progressive, but just a bit less crazy than Kim and Leno. you must either live in the Castro or Mission because every other district voted overwhelmingly for Breed. Im a richmond resident and i dont know anyone who voted for Kim. Gay friends voted for Leno, but it was more about identify politics than supporting his policies.

      1. You’re correct. I live in SoMa/Mission boarder, or “the Hub”. I do mostly hangout in the Mission and the Castro.

        I was just trying to point out that I live in such a bubble within the city, and I actually thought Leno was gonna win. This was a surprise to me.

  10. UPDATE: In a move that shouldn’t catch any plugged-in readers by surprise, Mark Leno has officially conceded to London Breed (as we previously updated above).

    And with an additional 2,762 ballots having been tallied since our “Breed Wins” by a projected margin of around 2,100 votes yesterday, Breed’s margin of victory has grown to 2,177 votes, which represents 0.88% of the 247,160 ballots tallied with an estimated 5,000 6,700 yet to be processed, which should yield an effective, and above average, election turnout of around 52.67% with 50.49% of the Ranked Choice Votes going to Breed when all is said and done.

  11. UPDATE: With an additional 2,413 ballots having been tallied over the past 24 hours, and an estimated 4,300 yet to be counted, Breed’s margin of victory has grown to 2,248 votes, which represents 0.90% of the 249,573 ballots tallied and, in total, 50.50 percent of the Ranked Choice Votes.

  12. Is it correct that London Breed lives in a rent-controlled apartment? I wonder who that lucky landlord is.

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