One main issue distinguished District 2 candidates Stephen Sherrill and Lori Brooke’s platforms: housing.
Brooke spent much of last fall fiercely opposing the plan to upzone the city by allowing six- to eight-story buildings on certain commercial corridors, including major District 2 arteries; Sherrill voted for that plan, and had the backing of the city’s YIMBYs.
But Brooke’s attempt to paint Sherrill as a developer’s rubber stamp wasn’t enough. The anti-YIMBY messaging in District 2, historically one of the city’s most housing-averse areas, held little sway on election day.
“Maybe they [the voters] don’t actually care about the Family Zoning Plan as much as people think,” said political consultant David Ho.
As of Tuesday, Sherrill is besting Brooke with 70 percent of the vote.
His win was not surprising to most politicos and District 2 residents. Since being appointed supervisor in December 2024, Sherrill has developed a reputation for competence and responsiveness.
He also benefited from the mayor’s popularity: Mayor Daniel Lurie knocked on doors for Sherrill, whom Lurie didn’t appoint but is now one of his closest allies on the Board of Supervisors. Jamie Hughes, Brooke’s consultant, said District 2 residents “voted for whoever got put in front of their faces the most and whoever Daniel Lurie liked.”
Still, Brooke, a longtime community organizer, was expected to put up a good fight. She has deep roots in District 2 from living there for over 30 years and leading several neighborhood organizations.
But once the results were clear on election night, pro-housing advocates were quick to take credit.
“If it wasn’t already clear, building more housing is popular. YIMBYs are here to stay,” District 5 supervisor Bilal Mahmood tweeted.
“The race ultimately came down to housing being NIMBY or YIMBY,” said Sachin Agarwal, the co-founder of political pressure group GrowSF, which ran ads touting Sherrill’s support for “Mayor Lurie’s Family Zoning Plan.”
District 2 residents that Mission Local spoke with by and large said that the district is not reflexively opposed to new development.
Part of it is demographic change. “There are a lot of newer, younger folks in D2 who are looking for affordable housing and subscribe to the YIMBY narrative,” said Paul Wermer, president of the Pacific Heights Residents Association.
Generally, most people in the district are fine with new housing, so long as it’s not too tall, Wermer said. “I think there’s a sense that there’s many opportunity sites for moderate housing to be built.”
Eric Kingsbury, past president of the Marina Community Association, said there is not a strong anti-upzoning sentiment, though that may be partially out of ignorance.
“People really like Daniel Lurie and the direction he’s taken this city. People also have no clue what the Family Zoning Plan is. They hear that it’s Daniel Lurie’s zoning plan and they like it,” he said.
But, he said, that could all change once taller buildings start popping up.
Nothing symbolizes that risk more than the Marina Safeway project, a proposed 25-story apartment building on the edge of the bay that induced an uproar among many of the district’s residents. The height of that project was not enabled by the upzoning, but was allowed because of a suite of YIMBY-approved reforms at the state level.
Sherrill quickly denounced the project when it was announced in December, saying that new development should be in line with existing buildings. But Brooke made it an issue on the campaign trail and said that was no excuse: She pointed out that Sherrill’s backers support the project, including State Sen. Scott Wiener, SF YIMBY, and GrowSF.
Sherrill, for his part, is still advocating against the project: He went to Sacramento in May to petition state housing authorities about the Marina Safeway’s compliance with state streamlining laws.
Added Kingsbury: “If the Marina Safeway gets built, being a YIMBY may become a liability in this district. It’s overreading the results to say the war is settled and people are pro-housing now.”
The YIMBYs have drawn a different conclusion. “If anything, I would say that perhaps a lesson for Supervisor Sherrill here is that the Marina Safeway project is not so bad and he should embrace that,” said YIMBY Action organizing director Brandon Powell.
Sherrill’s campaign was buoyed by cash: It had $1.4 million behind it, including support from five PACs, while Brooke had some $432,000. Voters saw far more pro-Sherrill ads.
But at the end of the day, Marina Community Association president Erin Roach said Sherrill has been “very, very present” as a supervisor — and that carried the day.
It wasn’t a dislike of Brooke and her politics: Around forty percent of voters who ranked Sherrill first ranked Brooke second, according to political consultant Jim Stearns, who analyzed individual ballots that were counted as of Friday.
“She did well,” said Stearns. “She just wasn’t the number one choice.”