Tech entrepreneur and “YIMBY” candidate Bilal Mahmood is poised to unseat District 5 supervisor Dean Preston, San Francisco’s only democratic socialist now serving on the board. In the most expensive district race, political opposition groups lavishly funded the effort to “Dump Dean.”
Though some 42,000 additional citywide votes are still uncounted, on Sunday evening Preston acknowledged his dwindling chances to mitigate his vote deficit, and seemed to concede the race.
“I’ve spent a lifetime fighting for underdogs, often against the odds,” Preston said in a statement to Mission Local. “I wouldn’t change a minute of it. We can’t win every battle, but we’ll continue the fight.”
Though Preston has continued to gain on Mahmood in first-place votes, Mahmood has maintained a lead when ranked-choice selections are counted, putting him more than 1,300 votes ahead of Preston, with 52.7 percent.
“I think it’s representative of a broad coalition campaign that we’ve built,” Mahmood said on Sunday, adding that he believes he will keep his lead over Preston. “And clearly, it’s appealed to both progressives and moderates in the district.”
Mahmood’s healthy lead in a longtime progressive district may be the only successful effort this election to oust an incumbent progressive. But the makeup of the Board of Supervisors could still change substantially, depending on the outcome of the vote in Districts 1 and 11.
Progressive Connie Chan (51.53 percent) in District 1 is presently nearly 1,000 votes ahead of Marjan Philhour (48.47 percent). District 11, held by termed out Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, is too close to call between the progressive Chyanne Chen (50.62 percent) and the moderate Michael Lai (49.38 percent), though Chen has caught and passed Lai in recent vote drops.
Moderate Danny Sauter appears poised to claim the termed-out Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s seat in District 3, while Jackie Fielder has claimed victory in District 9. District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar will likely keep her seat.
Preston has held his seat since 2019, beating Mayor London Breed’s handpicked successor Vallie Brown on two occasions. Clearly, defeating him would be a big win for the city’s more conservative forces.
Last updated on Nov. 10 at 4 p.m. Data from the San Francisco Department of Elections, chart by Kelly Waldron. *Incumbent.
Breed’s pick this year, Mahmood, only moved to the district in 2023; he has had ethics issues, and was financially backed by big-tech figures. Nonetheless, he apparently clicked with voters. His campaign emphasized the need to cut down on bureaucracy and red tape to build housing faster, and to take a more aggressive approach to the fentanyl crisis.
In many parts of District 5, voters also leaned toward their former supervisor, Breed, for mayor over the more progressive candidate, Supervisor Aaron Peskin.
District 5 encompasses a wide slice of San Francisco, spanning the Tenderloin through Hayes Valley, the Fillmore and Japantown, to Haight-Ashbury. Following redistricting in 2022, the Tenderloin was grafted into the district, which lost Cole Valley and part of the Inner Sunset. On paper, that move would seem to favor Preston, but the results in this election tell a different story.
Mahmood said he believes “the electorate just wanted change.” He noted that he has accumulated most of the second- and third-place transfers from other newcomer candidates like Scotty Jacobs and Autumn Looijen, despite their differing policy stances.
The district has long been a progressive stronghold in the city, where Breed was seen by political analysts as an outlier moderate supervisor among otherwise much-farther-left-leaning leaders like Matt Gonzalez or Ross Mirkarimi.
This election’s results indicate a shift; Preston lost out on voters’ second- and third-place selections, as moderate challengers’ votes pooled together to oust him. Mahmood has blended progressive policies, where he aligned closely with Preston, with more conservative ones, like expanding law enforcement.
The race for District 5 was also one of the most expensive supervisor contests this election cycle, with more than $1.5 million raised by the candidates, including public financing. A GrowSF PAC specifically formed with the goal of removing Preston raised nearly $300,000, funded by figures like Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen ($50,000) and Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan ($50,000). Preston’s campaign, meanwhile, raised more than $600,000.
It was a tumultuous and nail-biting few days as the Elections Department slowly eked out results; an initial ballot drop on election night showed Mahmood and Preston neck in neck, a difference of fewer than 200 votes putting Mahmood one percent above Preston. Preston was not discouraged when he trailed in initial results, anticipating progressive votes to come in later.
“The initial drop is always the least progressive,” Preston said at the time, seeing he was only 200 votes behind and saying he wasn’t worried. “That’s a great first drop for us, and very encouraging.”
But that hasn’t been the case in District 5 — though the more progressive candidates locked in tight races have indeed flourished in late voting in Districts 1, 7 and 11.
While Preston has maintained a lead on Mahmood in first-place votes, subsequent ballot drops each day since Thursday only solidified Mahmood’s lead after ranked-choice tabulations: Preston is presently ahead by 279 first-place votes, but ranked-choice vote accumulations from other candidates swamp him.
Thus far, 26,477 votes have been counted in the district.
Mahmood has said his priorities in office will be to build low-income, middle-income, and market-rate housing, and reduce bureaucracy and red tape to do so more quickly. He also wants to use law enforcement and treatment in conjunction to address the fentanyl crisis, and supports safe-consumption sites and abstinence-based treatment.
Though Preston presented himself as a champion of tenant rights who has worked to get affordable housing built in the city, Mahmood attacked Preston throughout the campaign, accusing him of “blocking” certain housing projects because he pushed for increased affordability. Preston called these attacks “dishonest,” and maintained that he had a lengthy track record of building housing across District 5.
Preston posted a statement on social media on Sunday evening to that end: “I’m proud to stand up to the disinformation fueled by some of the wealthiest in our country, and I will continue to push back against the right-wing pressure groups that backed my opponents and spent seemingly unlimited funds in our district and throughout the city.”
Thank you, Dean Preston, for all your hard work.
Now, will Mahmood support long-promised affordable housing on Parcel K in Hayes Valley (temporarily leased as the Proxy space)? It’s a bitter irony that Mahmood, who was supposedly the “YIMBY” candidate, first opposed building housing there, then supported it with the caveat that it includes an “atrium” — which almost certainly makes any construction infeasible.
Some will gloat about this result because they believe the stuff about Preston blocking housing. I disagree — besides Parcel K, there was his successful push for the DMV to consider housing at its Panhandle office, and for the now under construction 730 Stanyan to add two stories, and more. But either way, if building housing equal to SF’s needs matters to you, join the call for Mahmood to truly support housing on Parcel K.
> for the now under construction 730 Stanyan to add two stories, and more.
Scott is knowledgeable to know that the MOHCD is the reason 730 Stanyan has more housing, and Dean originally framed the rework for two additional stories as a “delay.” But he is huffing his own fumes, much like Dean.
Here are the receipts. Dean loudly called for the additional stories to added to maximize affordable homes in September 2020:
https://deanpreston.medium.com/eight-in-the-haight-maximizing-affordable-housing-at-730-stanyan-10df935a631c
While the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development ultimately made the call (as they have sole jurisdiction over it), they did so in response to Dean pushing. And it is also MOHCD that pre-downsized the original version of the development out of fear of NIMBY neighborhood backlash, meaning that it took longer to ultimately do the right thing and build to the full zoned height.
I don’t love the outcome here, but it’s the right way to count the votes: more voters preferred Mahmood over Preston than vice versa, so Mahmood wins over Preston.
That’s what RCV does, and it’s exactly the kind of situation that makes it a good thing we use RCV.
If the same set of votes were counted under old-fashioned first-past-the-post, Preston would have won, effectively just because moderate voters had so many options to choose from. Jacobs and Looijen, by entering the race, would have led to the defeat of the candidate more aligned with them in favor of the candidate more opposed to them. Even though some of us might have preferred that outcome in this case, it’s not a good thing for that to be able to sway an election.
Lucky for the “socialist,” he has his multimillion dollar portfolio of real estate to fall back on.
But now he can’t continue to veto housing projects that compete with his own properties.
Dean sowed division, he alienated regular people, and he did not do his job as a sup for D5 residents.
60% voted him out, and 20% wanted someone further right than Bilal or Preston. While he lived in his mansion on the hill the rest of us had to deal with the thieves he gave out tents to.
Did he ever offer housing to anyone? Nope!
“the only successful effort this election to oust an incumbent progressive”
Preston is a socialist, not a progressive. U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren is a renowned progressive who distinguishes herself from socialists like Bernie Sanders and Dean Preston by pointing out that she’s a capitalist.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
i wonder if GrowSF and yimby will see an ROI for the insane amount of money they and their billionaires poured into this race.
Good riddance to the trust fund know-nothing married to a real estate magnate who had little to offer the city in brains or long term solutions. I’m sure he’ll get right on that community impact study of the Mid-Market plan now that he has ample free time.
because the “neuroscientist” will definitely be equipped to do it
I can’t wait for the crying and celebrating ends and the fixing begins. Since the winner elect lives in my building, I will be giving him extra advice. First advice: Don’t drink from the City Hall water fountains. Because there is too much wacky in that water that causes supervisors to pass some of the wackiest and embarrassing laws in the country.
Do his wife and kids also live in your building or is it just a pied a terre?
Here with ranked choice voting they counted the votes, and if no one had a majority (more than 50 percent) then it went to another round. In the latest round, they looked at whomever had the least votes, and then they eliminated them. Those votes no longer counted. But if anyone cast a vote for that person voted for a number 2 candidate, then those votes were added to that candidate, and then a recount. If no one had a majority, we dropped another candidate and did another round. We kept doing that until we had 4 rounds or someone had a majority, whatever came first. Anyway, more people voted for Dean Preston than Bilal Mahmood, but Bilal still won because more of the people who voted for the losers ranked him (Bilal) as a second or third choice. The advantage of ranked choice voting is you don’t have to worry about throwing away your vote on an unpopular candidate as long as you’re willing to support someone else with similar politics or at least strategically bullet vote against the candidate you despise. But it does make having a coalition strategy more important, so sometimes it’s hard to be the frontrunner when the losers are all in confederacy against you. Four spoiler candidates ran against Dean Preston. For two years, their billionaire funders created Astroturf and superPacs (TogetherSf and GROWSF) that attacked him and misrepresented his record on social media. That is how Bilal Mahmood “won.” Good luck governing in D5 Bilal. We see you. You are a big phony.
I agree with you, though sometimes clearing the lane does seem to make sense. Every transfer round sees exhausted ballots, and if a coalition splits the vote too many ways, exhausted ballots can become problematic. Some of the folks cheering the D5 RCV results are the same folks who were bashing RCV when Boudin won.
What’s long been said about RCV is that it can be problematic for polarizing candidates. I know very little about Lurie, but Peskin, Farrell, and Breed are all strong personalities. The most familiar I got with Lurie was watching video of Joe interviewing him at Manny’s. Lurie struggled, and I thought him to be a milquetoast candidate. I thought the bravado candidates would knock him out like a bowling pin. What I saw as a weakness turned out to be anything but.
RLE,
Daniel’s greatest strength has always been that he’s a nice guy.
I told him over coffee just after he entered the race that he’d win on 2nd Place Votes that he got for being a Nice Guy.
His greatest strength now is that he doesn’t owe favors to any local machine politicos or outta town billionaires.
Let’s see how he uses that Free hand.
Incidentally, how many of you know that one of Daniel’s first forays into politics was to work on Bill Bradley’s campaign for the presidency ?
Go Niners !!
h.
Blaming the ‘rich’ for the problems in San Francisco is the stupidest narrative on the planet. If all San Francisco were rich what a paradise it could be, instead of the vagrant and drug addict ghetto it is. Dean Preston is only a hero in his little marxist mind and marxism is the root of all evil. Good riddance…
Congratulations on calling San Francisco a “ghetto” because it gains you the award for most stupid comment of 2024. By the way, how’s the weather today in Dallas?
” If all San Francisco were rich…”
I know, right?! A true paradise, where all poors have been shipped off to Turlock, who will fight over each other to commute two hours each way for starvation wages for the privilege to clean our mansions, cook our food, wash our dishes, stock store shelves, operate cash registers, drive and unload delivery trucks, make our boba, clean up our dogs’ street poop, manicure our gardens, unclog our toilets, paint our houses, build our remodels, put out our fires, haul our trash, deliver the mail, fix our cars, do our laundry and tailoring, nanny our kids, teach our kids, take care of our parents and grandparents, staff the hospitals, drive the ambulances, operate our water aand sewer systems, install and maintain power and cable lines, patrol our building lobbies, maintain our parks, pave our streets, maintain the highways, clean our teeth, etc. I won’t mention public transportation, because only the poors need that kind of welfare state hand-out, so we can shut down BART and Muni once and for all!
Freedom! Paradise!
The only question is, who will we get to guard all the entrances to the city?
Wanna buy a bridge ?
You believe that one was an honest count ?
Best Tenants lawyer in State losing again (same deal when Breed ran here) in a district that is 75% tenants to an anti-tenant candidate ?
You’d have thought Breed’s folks had conceded D-5 in their crooked Redistricting show when they added the Tenderloin there to clear those Prog votes out of D-6 so’s Dorsey could win there.
Now tell me he did it with Looijen’s 2nd place votes ?
In 2003 we had 22 candidates on the Ballot there and Mirk still won easily.
This one and Prop 33’s fail stink worst.
Still, I like our chances with Lurie lots more than with London on most issues.
h.
That’s the Trump-iest thing I’ve heard in a while. When a ballot result doesn’t match what I think should happen, there must be fraud. No evidence needed. Prop 33 lost 3 times in a row roughly 60-40 every time. It’s called democracy — sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Only accepting results you agree with? Sounds like Trump
Prop. 33 was the 3rd still born spawn of the lunatic Micheal Weinstein of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Millions blown on 3 of the same losing propositions. This Queen will never stop wasting funds that should go to patients for his selfish and 3 time loosing vanity agenda.
What a sad point of view….”all tenants are the same so they should all vote for one candidate”. That’s the same kind of thinking that ends up with what we will suffer with for the next four years in Washington.
How about San Francisco votes are smart enough (sometimes) to elect people who will listen and not be guided by “I know what’s best for everybody” – the progressive messaging.