Fourteen politicians announced their endorsement of District 8 supervisor candidate Gary McCoy on Monday after Emanuel “Manny” Yekutiel dropped out of the race on Thursday.
“I’m deeply honored to have such broad support from leaders across District 8, San Francisco, and even California — people who don’t always agree with each other, but who agree that we need a steady hand in City Hall advocating for our neighbors,” said McCoy, a former Nancy Pelosi aide.
On Oct. 1, two men accused Yekutiel of sexually assaulting them, joining Brad Chapin, whose accusation was published on June 30. In the hours after Thursday’s allegations were published by the San Francisco Standard, most endorsers pulled their support from Yekutiel and, soon after, he dropped out.
Now, several politicians who had initially supported Yekutiel, including Supervisors Bilal Mahmood, Danny Sauter and Stephen Sherrill, are endorsing McCoy.
Others are making their first endorsements in the race, including labor activist Dolores Huerta, Supervisors Shamann Walton and Chyanne Chen, and State Sen. Scott Wiener, who was District 8 supervisor from 2011 to 2016.
With Yekutiel out, McCoy is now considered the front-runner in the race. He and Yekutiel had both been running on YIMBY platforms but diverged on drug use and public safety issues. McCoy, for instance, opposed SFPD’s use of Flock license-plate readers due to privacy concerns, while Yekutiel argued that they were helpful for solving crimes.
McCoy’s list of supporters may yet grow. San Francisco’s chapter of the Democratic Party is meeting on Oct. 11 to reconsider its endorsement of Yekutiel, which is all but certain to be withdrawn.
Notably missing from McCoy’s new list of supporters are Mayor Daniel Lurie and current District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman.
After withdrawing his endorsement from Yekutiel on Thursday, Lurie said he would not make another endorsement in the race. Mandelman, who initially stood by Yekutiel but then later withdrew his endorsement, did not respond to a request for comment.
McCoy had already amassed a number of high-profile endorsements before today, including from Pelosi, San Francisco YIMBY, San Francisco Tenants Union, the San Francisco Labor Council, the Working Families Party, several city supervisors and two LGBTQ Democratic clubs.
This is funny. For those who endorsed Yekutiel originally, why should anyone take you seriously for endorsing his challenger? If your poor choice blew up in your face due to lack of homework, where is the assurance you did your homework on this new endorsement?
To go from own candidate to the other would be very odd as they are polar opposites, politically.
Other than being a “steady hand” (instead of a moving hand?) and a lot of new endorsements, is there anything about Mr. McCoy that deserves those endorsements?
I would love to see a Meet the Candidates question to the remaining 3 candidates along the lines of “which policies of yours would appeal the most to voters who were supporting Manny?”. They haven’t really differentiated themselves much policy wise.
Manny supporters are responsible for figuring it out themselves. Anyone supporting him after the first allegations needs to do some HEAVY critical thinking practice anyway. Grow up, read up, and vote your own way.
Odd, I was under the impression someone running for office would want to “understand the needs of the constituents” and “get votes”.
Sounds like you have lower standards for a politician than I do!
Duh, I think that is right. D8 is a moderate district and has been ever since I lived here. It deserves a moderate supervisor. And yet the three candidates left running are all various degrees of left-wing, which does not sit well with the affluent homeowners of D8.
So I will vote for Manny and make no other selections. Let Manny win, resign and then Lurie can appoint someone better than any of these three.
I don’t think this is true. Mandelman won election as the progressive choice before moving to the right, and if you look at ballot measure returns or citywide races, D8 is consistently the third most aligned with progressives after 5 and 9. For example, it joined 5 and 9 as the only three districts where majorities opposed March 2024 Prop E to expand police surveillance and car chases and limit oversight. In November 2024, Aaron Peskin got his third-highest percentage of first-place votes for mayor there. In 2022, the vacant homes tax, Prop M, got its third-highest yes vote in District 8 and I could go on.
This guy’s claim to fame is keeping people compassionately hooked on drugs to “help” them, it’s unfortunate that there is no longer someone in the race who is at least somewhat critical of “harm reduction” bullshit.
The evidence is clear: Coerced treatment for substance abuse disorder doesn’t work. Harm reduction keeps people alive until they’re ready to accept treatment.
I get that people are frustrated over public drug use and we are right to be, but we’ll stay frustrated – and people will die – if we keep opting for punitive policies that may feel good in the moment but don’t work. McCoy, Nguyen, and Patel are right. Harm reduction along with expanding treatment on demand is the actual solution.
I live in district 8 and see the nextv4 years a disaster as what choices left are all horrible, Mc Coy leading the pack. SF is screwed by the choices we have locally an for the house.
It is a sad state of SF progressive politics indeed when that the guy who Scott Wiener plucked from crystal meth homeless obscurity and who was an executive with Yet Another City funded poverty nonprofit charity that’s laundered $150m with no improvement in street conditions and no measurable record of helping people up and out of bad situations is the desirable “progressive” choice and now is probably going to win by default.
Like Chan vs Wiener, McCoy is less worse than Yekutiel, but it is pathetic that this is the best that our city can produce politically compared to some of the candidates we’re seeing perform favorably in the rest of the nation.
I bet he gives Luis Granados a raise.
The impression I have of McCoy comes from his, “Housing First,” approach towards the jobless, penniless, hard core drug addicts that flock to the City, for cheap drugs.
Why should residents of San Francisco foot the bill for, “permanent, supportive housing,” for people that made bad decisions in life, while waiting on the same to decide when they will kick the habit, or kick the bucket? Seems like a reward for irresponsible behaviors.
I don’t mind paying for PSH for San Franciscans who have fallen on hard times.
I do not think that San Francisco taxpayers should be obligated to both pay for SFPD not addressing fentanyl sales on the streets AND to house and treat and employ the region’s fentanyl addicts.
City funded nonprofits, like Health Right 360, see this as a golden business opportunity.
Luis Granados needs a raise.
I wish we just had the region’s. Instead we have people coming from across the country to do drugs here.