See how they run: Mayor Breed courts a disgruntled voting bloc in Chinatown, talking tourism

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Mission Local is publishing a daily campaign dispatch for each of the major contenders in the mayor’s race, alternating among candidates weekly until November. This week: London Breed. Read the rest of the series here.

London Breed is in trouble, and she knows it: The results of polling show double-digit unfavorability ratings for the incumbent mayor, particularly so among Asian voters: 80 percent disapprove of her job in office, about 10 points higher than the general population.

It’s a striking rate in a voting bloc that accounts for some 30 percent of the electorate, and Breed, like other candidates, is sorting out her play.

“It’s not a monolith, and you’re dealing with multiple ethnicities … but the short answer is: It’s a lot of voters,” said David Latterman, a retired campaign consultant who specialized in crunching numbers, speaking about the Asian electorate.

With City Attorney David Chiu sitting on the sidelines, and thus no Asian candidate in the ring, no single contender was likely to win the bloc outright, Latterman said.

Instead, each will try to carve out a portion.

“It will matter more to any one candidate that no one gets them all,” said Latterman. “Peskin expects to get the Chinatown voters, but won’t do well on the westside. Farrell is leaning hard into public safety, but he doesn’t have much else. I think they’re all willing to split it every which way.”

So on Tuesday, two days after coming back from China and securing a pair of pandas for the San Francisco Zoo, one of Breed’s first stops was Stockton Street in Chinatown. She entered more than a dozen shops, shook a few dozen hands, and took many dozen photos. She largely spoke about two things: Flights and visas, visas and flights.

Walking arm-in-arm with her “Chinese grandmother,” Mrs.Wong, Breed told merchant after merchant that she is working diligently to ensure more family, friends, and tourists could visit from the mainland.

“It’s millions of people, they want to come here, they are ready to go,” she said inside the One Global travel agency. Plus, she said: “The pandas are coming. We need more flights.”

Two British tourists passing by greeted the mayor, who called out after them: “Spend all your money in San Francisco!” A Texan couple on vacation, celebrating their first anniversary, stopped outside Cafe New Honolulu, perusing the menu as Breed went in. 

“I guess this is us,” said Curtis Grays, 46, following the mayor’s gaggle. “She decided for us. Mayor-approved.”

But increasing Chinese tourism, Breed acknowledged, is “not directly in my control.” Still, Breed met with Chinese officials in charge of aviation, and said she will start convincing their American counterparts to increase those flights. The Biden administration has capped flights operated by Chinese airlines, and only increased them slowly.

The lag in recovering from the pandemic shutdown in travel has taken a toll in San Francisco: In 2023, $633 million dollars came into the city from Chinese tourists, a big increase, but still about half of the reportedly $1.2 billion spent by the group the year before lockdowns.

“We’ve seen every other country recover and, in some cases, exceed [pre-pandemic levels], but not China,” Breed said.

Leon Chow, a longtime former SEIU and Unite HERE! community organizer who is now on Breed’s team, said Chinatown merchants want “a combination of pedestrian safety, public safety, quality of life” to increase business, but are also hyperfocused on tourism. 

“All they talk about is, ‘Hey, we need more flights, we need more expedited visas,’” he said.

At least, that was the hope on Tuesday. The travel agencies, Chinese bakeries, and grocers Breed visited took campaign signs and would surely appreciate more visitors. Breed made it clear she is trying, and hopes that any increase in tourism will be associated with her efforts. “I went there [to China] so I could bring tourists back,” Breed told one shopkeeper. “I’m trying to get them here, so they can spend money for you.”

Will it help her with other Chinese voters? 

The election is six months away, and other candidates are also currying favor: Mark Farrell, former District 2 supervisor, will appeal to those most frightened about the state of crime with his push to “flood” the police academy with new recruits and enact a “zero tolerance” approach to crime; Board President Aaron Peskin has a decades-long history in Chinatown as its representative, and may attract homeowners skeptical of market-rate housing; while Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie has picked up some significant support from Asian community leaders. Ahsha Safaí has fewer prominent Asian endorsers.

Breed, too, is focusing on law-and-order policies, touting a reduction in crime rates and past initiatives, like Proposition E, to loosen the police department’s rules, and Proposition F, to impose drug screening on some welfare recipients. And, said her campaign, ensuring voters feel the statistics.

“The key here is making sure that the emotional test matches the data,” said Joe Arellano, her campaign spokesperson, adding that public safety is “consistently the number one issue that Chinese voters mention to the mayor.” 

But on Tuesday, at least, the focus was largely “more flights, and pandas,” Breed said.

At the end of the two-hour walking tour, she gifted one of her panda plushies, which she carried while stepping off the flight at the San Francisco International Airport, to Mrs. Wong, who beamed and posed in the center of a group photo. Then, Breed returned to City Hall in her black Chevy Tahoe.

“I gotta work,” she said.