Danny Sauter leads the District 3 Supervisor race with 56 percent of the votes, leading his closest challenger, Sharon Lai, by 1,821 votes, according to the latest results.
Though another 157,000 votes remain to be counted, ranked-choice-voting experts said Sauter is unlikely to lose his commanding lead.
For Lai to win, the remaining votes “would have to be very, very different to what we’ve seen so far. They have to be much more pro-Sharon,” said Jason McDaniel, San Francisco State University political science professor with a research focus on ranked-choice voting.
“I don’t see that happening,” he added.
Note: These results are preliminary. Table created by Kelly Waldron. Data released by the San Francisco Department of Elections on Nov. 6 at 1 a.m.
Sauter, who, at 36, would be one of the youngest members of the Board of Supervisors, was endorsed by the San Francisco Democratic Party, and is considered a moderate-leaning YIMBY candidate. He was endorsed by State Sen. Scott Wiener, and is more pro-housing compared to other candidates.
Incumbent District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin backed both Lai and Moe Jamil, another contender who ran third.
“We represent new leadership and new ideas,” Sauter said today.
On the campaign trail, Sauter said, voters “did not have to kind of think about my campaign issues so much, because they’ve already seen the work and the impact that I’ve had in the neighborhoods.”
Sauter’s been a tenant in District 3 since 2014. He lost to Peskin with 43 percent of votes in the 2020 race, and was deeply involved in neighborhood groups and creating the well-liked North Beach Farmers Market.
Although Lai and Jamil formed an alliance in the weeks leading up to the election, Sauter managed to pick up a decent amount of support once Jamil was eliminated. The alliance was formed too late, said Sauter.
Among Jamil’s 3,037 votes, 815 went to Sauter, and 1,129 went to Lai. Most of the other votes could not be transferred because they failed to identify a candidate still in the running.
The next round of results will drop at 4 p.m. on Thursday.
Note: These results are preliminary. Map created by Kelly Waldron. Data released by the San Francisco Department of Elections on Nov. 6 at 1 a.m.
Sauter’s appeal appears to have been district-wide, earning a decent amount of votes in almost all District 3 precincts. Even in areas where Lai has a lead — Chinatown and downtown — Sauter managed to secure around 30 percent of the votes.
Sauter had “the most ambitious and expansive field program,” he said. His campaign started knocking on doors months earlier than other campaigns, he said, and his volunteers earned a lot of on-the-ground contacts by simply standing on street corners outside of grocery stores.
As for his success in Chinatown, he credited campaign manager Amy Lee, who was from the community. The endorsements from Chinatown leaders helped introduce the campaign to more residents in the neighborhood, he said.
In the four years ahead, Sauter said he wants to make legislative progress around housing and homelessness.
He also wants to extend an olive branch to welcome companies and businesses back to the district, especially to under-used commercial spaces. There is “a lot of low-hanging fruit on reshaping our small-business permitting and our planning code to make it easier for businesses to open and to be embraced in our neighborhoods,” he said.
Scott Wiener, Danny Sauter’s main endorser, drops by Sauter’s watch party to congrat Sauter on the initial results. Photo by Yujie Zhou, Nov. 5, 2024. 
D3 candidate Danny Sauter kisses wife Chelsey Frank after the initial results dropped. Photo by Yujie Zhou, Oct. 5, 2024. 
Danny Sauter, District 3 candidate. Photo by Yujie Zhou, Nov. 5, 2024.
Happy for Danny. He’s been out and about in the neighborhood for years and clearly cares. Excited to see what improvements he brings.
Thrilled for Danny. He’s put in the work, is a deeply gracious and thoughtful and kind human being—something rare for an ambitious politician. I voted for him knowing that even if we sometimes disagree, he’ll act for what he truly believes are the right reasons and only after listening to his constituents. Given what D3 has gone through under Peskin, it will be such a damn relief.
You should clarify that 157,000 remaining ballots is a city wide number and only a fraction of those will include votes for D3 supervisor. Otherwise it seems like there are 100x ballots vs votes needed to close the gap which, on the surface, seems too close to call.