San Francisco’s rancorous redistricting process changed the shape of the electorate across the city, but in no place was it as influential this year as Districts 5 and 7. Specifically, the transfer of the Inner Sunset from District 5 to District 7 likely hamstrung Dean Preston, who lost in District 5 — but just as likely boosted Myrna Melgar, who won in District 7.
Preston’s defeat was particularly consequential for progressives, who lost a clear majority on the Board of Supervisors for the first time since 2019. Preston’s loss “really, really hurts,” said Kim Tavaglione, the head of the San Francisco Labor Council; unions spent handsomely for Preston.
In 2022, the city’s district boundaries were redrawn after a very long and controversial process. In that year’s election, the new maps made the difference in District 4; three of the city’s most conservative-voting precincts were removed from District 7 and grafted into District 4. These tracts provided the margin of victory for Joel Engardio over incumbent supervisor Gordon Mar; Engardio, significantly, lived in one of the precincts that was transferred into District 4.
Relevant to the 2024 election, the Inner Sunset was transferred out of District 5 to District 7, and the Tenderloin into District 5 from District 6.
Redistricting changed the boundaries of District 5
After redistricting,
part of the Inner
Sunset was
removed from
District 5
TENDERLOIN
WESTERN
ADDITION
HAYES
VALLEY
After redistricting,
the Tenderloin
became a part of
District 5
HAIGHT-
ASHBURY
COLE
VALLEY
New boundaries
INNER SUNSET
Old boundaries
Old boundaries
New boundaries
After redistricting,
part of the Inner
Sunset was
removed from
District 5
WESTERN
ADDITION
TENDERLOIN
HAYES
VALLEY
HAIGHT-
ASHBURY
and theTenderloin
became part of
District 5
COLE
VALLEY
INNER SUNSET
Data from sf.gov. Map by Kelly Waldron.
The Inner Sunset is a progressive area that strongly voted for Preston in 2020 and 2019 in his runs against Vallie Brown. Across 10 precincts in the Inner Sunset, Preston won 55 percent of first-choice votes in 2020, propelling him to office.
In 2020, Preston gained the most votes in the Inner Sunset
In 2020, Dean Preston won 55
percent of first-choice votes
in the Inner Sunset
WESTERN
ADDITION
HAYES
VALLEY
HAIGHT-
ASHBURY
Vallie Brown
Dean Preston
INNER SUNSET
Dean Preston
Vallie Brown
In 2020, Dean Preston
won 55 percent of
first-choice votes
in the Inner Sunset
WESTERN
ADDITION
HAYES
VALLEY
HAIGHT-
ASHBURY
INNER SUNSET
Note: Only precincts which were subsequently removed from District 5 are displayed. Data from the San Francisco Department of Elections, updated Nov. 21. Map by Kelly Waldron.
But District 5 lost that progressive base this time around, and gained other precincts in the Tenderloin that proved much less fruitful to Preston.
The Tenderloin, “a renter-dense, working-class neighborhood,” was a natural base for Preston, said Jen Snyder, his campaign consultant. But it was a neighborhood with too few voters. Turnout in the Tenderloin was 47 percent in the November supervisor race, lower than the 65 percent turnout across District 5 or the 79 percent citywide turnout.
When measured in votes, the lower turnout came close to losing the race for Preston. The supervisor received just 1,963 votes in the Tenderloin this year, many fewer than the 3,452 votes he received in the Inner Sunset back in 2020.
In new precincts, Preston won the most first-choice votes
But turnout was low compared to district and citywide turnout
WESTERN
ADDITION
HAYES
VALLEY
HAIGHT-
ASHBURY
In 2024, Dean Preston won
39 percent of first-choice
votes in the Tenderloin
INNER SUNSET
Bilal Mahmood
Dean Preston
Dean Preston
Bilal Mahmood
WESTERN
ADDITION
HAYES
VALLEY
HAIGHT-
ASHBURY
In 2024, Dean Preston won
39 percent of first-choice
votes in the Tenderloin
Note: Only precincts new to District 5 are displayed. Data from the San Francisco Department of Elections, updated Nov. 21. Map by Kelly Waldron.
The difference of 1,489 votes wasn’t the election — Preston still needed another 176 votes — but it would have helped: Preston lost to Bilal Mahmood by 1,665 votes.
Tenderloin voters were also harder to get to. “What we quickly learned is that grassroots organizing in the Tenderloin is very different to organizing in the Inner Sunset,” Snyder said. Trying to canvas in apartment buildings — “it’s very different than knocking on the door of a three-floor Victorian.”
Snyder, for her part, did not attribute Preston’s unsuccessful run to the redistricting, but rather the well-funded opposition campaign pushed by GrowSF, which spent $362,746 to fight Preston, and the fact that the district’s demographics have changed (fewer residents live there now compared to before the pandemic).
Preston, however, raised more money than his top rival: $600,564 to Mahmood’s $496,399. Preston also benefitted from third-party spending: Labor unions spent $10,306 to back him, and $200,057 to attack Mahmood.
There were other factors. Preston did worse in District 5 generally this year, compared to 2020. While Preston did win the majority of first-choice votes, he won in fewer precincts. And he received few No. 2 votes: Mahmood was the next choice of the supporters of Scotty Jacobs and Autumn Looijen, other candidates in the race, and gained the majority of their transfer votes.
Preston’s loss in District 5, however, was likely Melgar’s gain in District 7.
Melgar received nearly 57 percent of her first-choice votes in the Inner Sunset, a total of 6,665 votes. Melgar relied on this area more than any other to beat her rival Matt Boschetto, who dominated in more conservative pockets of District 7. Boschetto only won some 28 percent in the Inner Sunset.
Melgar, for her part, was clear-eyed about the boost. “Those precincts definitely helped me, because I’m the more progressive candidate and those are progressive precincts,” said Melgar. “Redistricting probably helped me more than anyone else.”
I think the Safeway letter Dean sent to London this week is a perfect encapsulation of why progressives keep losing. He wants the city to eminent domain the Safeway and use it for social/affordable housing knowing full well the city doesn’t have the money to do it and the federal gov’t isn’t coming to fund it.
I agree with the sentiment. We need more social/affordable housing. A lot of it. I’m all for upping taxes to pay for it but that is not popular with voters. I know that and so does Dean.
If we tried to follow his plan nothing will happen to the site and all that does is harm the progressive movement and add to the list of things we tell voters we can/should have but don’t actually have a concrete plan for how to get from point A to point B. Voters aren’t dumb they see it. We need more pragmatic progressives who understand that things cost money and we will have to make trade offs. Promising voters everything and doing next to nothing is just empty words and is doing more harm than good imo.
Better for the City to bank the land through eminent domain and hold it until funding for construction becomes available than to let it go for more market rate luxury condos.
That is not a legitimate use of eminent domain as there is no over-riding public policy interest or imperative.
Market rate condos are not a ‘luxury’. You have to work hard and smart to afford the going rate. Real LUXURY is getting other people to pay for all or part of your condo! That is a scarce and very rare sweepstakes kind of luxury. You have to beat out a hundreds of losers on the list, for that kind of luxury.
SF Market rate = luxury. Compared to anywhere in the nation. Building luxury condos for yuppies doesn’t solve any crisis, and certainly not the housing crisis. If you buy the pleaded lies of big developers, you will buy anything. They have no interest in solving the housing crisis. They have an interest in money in their pocket.
Given the political profile of the neighborhood, the Tenderloin should have been a promising well for Preston to tap for support. If he failed to convert voters there, it’s on him.
That’s to ignore the tenderloin’s actual condition for the entire Breed regime. They’re fed up with the “idea” realistic or not of “coddling” drug addicted homeless. It’s not a fair shake to pin all that on Preston but he inherits those issues.
Preston is no loss. He and his supporters should study Chan. Kudos to Melgar for fending off another TogetherSF candidate.
Nice graphics! Good analysis!
It’s hard to see how Preston could have won this year in D5 – even with the Inner Sunset – when he ended up losing in the Upper Haight, the Middle Haight, the Lower Haight, Hayes Valley, Japantown, Civic Center, and even some precincts in the Fillmore, Western Addition, and Tenderloin.
He could have shored up those areas with the time and energy he had to spend over the past two years building connections with all the new voters added to district 5. But yes, I suspect the years of lies about his housing record were a bigger factor, as well as the general anti-incumbent mood. It’s a terrible loss. I don’t know if anyone will do as much to push forward public investment in housing as Dean, which is the only way we’re building much housing under current economic conditions.
Hear hear.
First off, what does labor expect in return for the gobs of money spent on supervisors and how does that constrain the ability of electeds they fund to put the interests of their constituents before those of labor when there are conflicts? Spending in D11 was $58/vote. That’s absurd.
Having worked on D6 campaigns that included TL outreach when the TL was in D6, the solution is that you identify a supporter in a building by phone and then have them grant entry to canvassers or canvass the building themselves. That often requires the consent of the building managers. In the case of master lease buildings and SROs, that would be Randy Shaw and his THC, Preston’s former employer, who’s followed the money and migrated off of the progressive island into the warm embrace of the conservative Democrat hands that feed him city money.
Melgar, like Ronen, is so mushy politically that she’s offended nobody and did not draw strong opposition like Chan or Preston.
The real surprise was Chan in D1 who I thought was at greater risk than Preston who appears to won with one of the largest margins in D1 since McGoldrick.
As a former building owner and manager, I never allowed canvassing inside my building, and in fact discouraged any outward demonstration of political bias in my business.
If Preston wants to spend his new-found spare time contemplating why he lost, I suggest that he invests in mirrors.
Let’s face it: 60% of D5 said anyone but Preston (and the redistricing probably helped him get to 40). People left in the pandemic, new people moved in – we can’t say 2020 votes are the same as 2024.
Now he can go live of his real estate empire, perhaps ‘suffer’ some of his own ridiculous legislation. I’ll be glad not to see his grin around D5.
He’ll take his potshots from the sidelines. Now his proposals can be even more unrealistic and pie in the sky!
Melgar verbally supports Connor Johnston(!) of all possible goons to replace Stefani in district 2, as Breed will pick her successor on the BOS. Yes, the little scrub bully who screams at people and gets in their faces outside political events. Breed’s Chief of (troll) Staff. He doesn’t even live in the district. Melgar is no leader as far as I’ve seen, what a joke.
(sfchronicle.com/sf/article/breed-appoint-open-sf-supevisor-seat-19935286.php)
Progressives deserve a voice for their failed theories. But intelligent people rejoice that they no longer control the Board of Supervisors.
The data don’t lie.
Some factors in the D5 supervisor race:
1)Gerrymandering worked (this time)
2)When voters live in densely built, multi storied towers (as are common in the Tenderloin and the Fillmore), it is more challenging to engage with them and get them to turn out and vote.
3) The +2 year social disinformation campaign led by toxic Techbros Garry “die slow” Tan, Steven Buss, Sachin Agarwahl of GROWSF, along with Kanishka Cheng and her hubby Jason (now “Jay”) Cheng and TogetherSF worked. They spent hours and days and weeks and piles of cash in their dishonest campaign on social media to “Dump Dean.” They deliberately lied about and distorted Preston’s legislative record.
4) Running 3 spoiler candidates (each more conservative than the next) to splinter votes away from the only straight up progressive incumbent worked (this time).
The GROWSF and TOGETHERSF trolls are thick on this thread.
So anyone who disagrees with you is a “troll”?
Kinda convenient, no?
Bye bye Dean, now move to Moscow where you belong.