District 4 supervisor Alan Wong has all but certainly won his race out in the Sunset: He routed Natalie Gee, his closest rival, by some 50 points, 72.3 percent to Gee’s 27.7.
“Seventy-two percent!” yelled Chasel Lee, a Wong supporter, almost immediately after he arrived at the candidate’s election party with Adam Thongsavat, Mayor Daniel Lurie’s board liaison. Wong was a Lurie ally, and Lurie went door-knocking with him weeks before the election.
Bobak Esfandiari, a Wong supporter wearing a Scott Wiener zip-up hoodie, quickly looked up the result on his laptop to confirm, and yelled out the results again: “72.32 percent! Followed by Natalie Gee, 27.68 percent!”
Among the ecstatic faces around him, Wong smiled politely, composed as always, his head slightly tilting to one side as he slowly climbed onto a chair to address the crowd.
“I’m using my big-boy voice,” Wong said. “For our election here, it’s about making sure we have a supervisor office that listens to Sunset residents,” he continued.
Wong recounted how he knocked on half of the doors in the Sunset and how, unlike his opponents, he tried not to get caught up in the “grandiose ideological ideas” and take a “pragmatic approach.”
“Alan! Alan! Alan! Alan!” The crowd chanted, as Wong invited everyone to eat more pizza.
But Wong may not be able to rest easy for long: Gee is very likely to challenge him again come November.
The incumbent’s seeming victory is only to fill out the term of former supervisor, Joel Engardio, who was recalled last September for pushing to close the Great Highway to car traffic and turn the road into Sunset Dunes park.
In November, District 4 voters will once again decide on a representative for the next four-year term.
Gee, for her part, did not concede the race. “No, not tonight,” Gee said when asked if she would bow out.
“We ran a strong-ass campaign,” Gee said. “I’m so proud of all the work and all the heart people poured into this. Everything was stacked up against us.”
Over $2.6 million flowed into the District 4 race, and 60 percent of that came from spending of political action committees. That third-party spending largely benefited Wong.
While he raised $394,000 directly from donors, who have a $500 cap, he benefited from another $1.6 million in PAC spending, including $580,000 from SF Believes, a PAC created by the wealthy allies of Mayor Lurie that accepted a $250,000 donation from MAGA donor Jan Koum.
Gee has raised $402,000 from direct donations and was the pro-labor candidate. She campaigned on “making the Sunset affordable for the working people” and poured a lot of effort on social media.
The other candidates — Albert Chow, Jeremy Greco and David Lee — were behind both. Greco, the only candidate in the race who supports Sunset Dunes, had no name recognition nor much of a campaign, but got more votes than Lee, a perennial candidate who is running for office for the fifth time.
Chow, a hardware-store owner who made his bones on the recall of Engardio and advocated forcefully to bring cars back to the Great Highway, had a strong showing.
In the first round, before ranked-choice eliminations, he actually beat Gee by 30 votes. She then picked up other candidates’ second- and third-place picks, but far more went to Wong.
Gee, for her part, did not concede the race. “No, not tonight,” Gee said when asked if she would bow out.
What a joke. Like her boss Walton, she has no pulse on what people want.
Congrats to Alan Wong. I like the kid – just hope he proves to be more independent than his well heeled donors would like him to be. Natalie Gee campaigned her tail off more than anybody. Definitely earned her votes. High five to Gee for toughness and punching above her weight in a moderate leaning district. Chow had a shot but couldn’t capitalize despite an authentic neighborhood agenda. David Lee? Not enough campaign presence. Did he really want this?’ Heck, Greco even beat him without the Sunset Dunes cash.