See running election updates here
Like it is every Election Day, City Hall’s basement was set up with scads of election booths to accommodate a crush of voters. They didn’t materialize, and the place resembled a high school game being played at Oracle Park.
“I can’t remember a quieter election day,” noted one longtime city politico.
Turnout may end up being the story of this election. Only 19 percent of voters had returned their ballots as of Monday. Even a strong showing today would only push turnout into just the mid 40s or 50 percent — but if that happened, it was difficult to observe in real time: Mission Local had reporters scouring the city, and no obvious surge materialized.
At 8:45 p.m., the first round of votes will drop. These will be the folks who voted early, and they tend to be people who always vote — they skew older, more conservative and more likely to own a home. Data on the 102,000 early votes from California political data whiz Paul Mitchell reveals that San Francisco voters aged 65 and older represent a staggering 44 percent of all the ballots returned thus far — despite that age group only being 24 percent of the electorate.
It will become clearer throughout the evening how many later voters turn in their ballots to balance out this group.
But if it’s a truly low number, unforeseen lunacy may occur. Starting right at the top, with Proposition A, the earthquake safety bond. Big bonds are always given the designation of “Prop. A” and are supported by every last firmament of the city’s mainstream political cosmology. They do not get onto the ballot unless there is every reason to believe they’ll pass. But, with a low turnout, the earthquake bond, which requires 66.7 percent of the votes to win, is on shaky ground.
Its backers, in fact, have been sweating bullets for quite some time; Mission Local has learned that, as recently as several weeks ago, Prop. A was polling at just 64 or 65 percent. Mayor Daniel Lurie, the firefighters union and virtually every elected official have put their imprimatur on the big bond, and they all figure to be downing the Pepto until the votes are counted.
It is not normal for mayors to lend their backing to public safety or infrastructure bonds and lose. London Breed did in 2022, however, when a Muni bond was running, disastrously, on the same ballot as the Chesa Boudin recall — which drummed up scads of angry and disgruntled voters not inclined to open up their hearts and wallets to Big Government.
Prior to that, the last mayor to lose an infrastructure bond was Gavin Christopher Newsom in November 2005 (Prop. B, a street and sidewalk improvement bond). Between Newsom and Breed’s misadventures, the city got its act together and introduced a capital plan. That ensured voters’ tax rates would not go up if new bonds were approved — making it far more difficult to lose one of these elections. For lack of a better comparison, losing a Prop. A is like the Navy having one of its aircraft carriers sink.
Tonight’s Prop. A press conference helmed by the mayor and firefighters union will, notably, be held at the same venue where a pair of firefighters were involved in a 2025 brawl that got the city sued. It remains to be seen if that becomes an allegory for the night’s results. If voters do, indeed, vote down the public safety bond, tonight’s big winner could be rowhouse fires.
‘D’ is for Doubt
Low turnout also could spell doom, disaster and debacle for Proposition D, the labor-backed “Overpaid CEO tax” to levy billion-dollar companies to backfill Trump cuts to social services. Lurie, along with many of the proprietors of those billion-dollar companies, helmed a lavishly funded campaign against Prop. D, foretelling a business exodus should it pass.
The Yes on D campaign had high confidence heading into the election — but it also relied on projections of a turnout in the mid-50s. That was subsequently downgraded to the mid-40s, and now even that is in doubt. Below that, we’re told, D is in danger (alliteration not intended. Or maybe it is; who’s to know?).
A depressed turnout and potential surge of late ballots make it difficult to predict how the votes will sort as more come in. With so many ballots arriving late, the conventional wisdom about late voters being progressive may not hold. This year, many if not most of the voters will be late voters.
Low turnout may benefit Lori Brooke more than Stephen Sherrill in District 2, as Brooke presumably would poll better among older, neighborhood association types who likely returned their ballot weeks ago. Similarly, Albert Chow could benefit in District 4, as early voters likely share his neighborhood connections and deep resentments over the Great Highway and the Engardio recall.
In any event, in less than an hour the early votes will drop and the conjecture will cease.
Plenty at stake for Lurie
Regardless of the outcome, a lot is riding on this for Mayor Daniel Lurie. If voters pass Prop. A, spurn Prop. D and return sitting supervisors Stephen Sherrill and Alan Wong, it will match his wish list. Conversely, it would be a gut punch to lose Prop. A or either of the supe races. And the mayor is the de-facto face of No on D.
Would voters in this case be intentionally rebuking the popular mayor? That seems far-fetched.
Conversely, favorable results for the mayor in a weird, lower-turnout election would not necessarily mean voters were expressly following Lurie’s wishes. It’s highly possible that the majority of San Franciscans will simply not vote. A supermajority of the electorate will either vote against Lurie’s wishes or not vote.
Lurie invested political capital into this election and did not obfuscate his positions. It remains to be seen what the return on that investment is. Regardless, he figures to remain extremely popular, even if the transferability of that popularity is harder to gauge.
It’s a subjective measurement to claim people voted in agreement with Lurie because he told them to vote that way.
But it’s an objective measurement to see when they didn’t factor in his exhortations.
The first tranche of votes drops at 8:45, with more coming every hour or so. There is much tabulating to be done in the coming days. And the next election is just five months away.
