For the last two weeks before the election, Mission Local’s campaign dispatches are switching daily between the major candidates. Today: Ahsha Safaí. Read earlier dispatches here.
Since Ahsha Safaí declared his candidacy for mayor in May 2023, he has walked the Mission Street corridor in the Excelsior many times, asking shop owners to put his signs in their windows and asking residents for their vote.
Nowadays, however, Safaí has company. Mark Farrell, his opponent in the mayoral race, with whom he recently formed a ranked-choice voting alliance, is joining Safaí more and more on the campaign trail. The alliance is likely to only help Farrell; Safaí, the termed-out District 11 supervisor, will likely be the first of the five front-runners to have his votes redistributed, if recent polls are accurate.
So on Thursday, Safaí took on the staffer-like role of introducing Farrell to business owners. When Farrell ran into linguistic limitations with Spanish-speaking voters, Safaí helped to translate.
“My name is Ahsha. I’m running for mayor,” Safaí said to one shop owner. “This is my friend Mark. He’s also running for mayor. We are running as a team.”
This introduction left most voters surprised, if not confused. Many were not familiar with the ranked-choice voting system that allows voters to select up to 10 people for mayor on the ballot. But two candidates campaigning together also flummoxed some of the business owners.
Not Safaí. “People see it as a breath of fresh air, because candidates are usually just attacking each other,” he said. “I think voters really respond well. They see it as a collaboration. They see it as a mature decision.”
This wasn’t their first joint appearance since early October when they announced the alliance. They’ve also campaigned together at Crocker Amazon Park, and in the Castro and Noe Valley.
The alliance is clearly an effort to blunt all of those second-choice votes that the polls say are going to Farrell’s rival, Daniel Lurie. But Jim Ross, a long-time political consultant in San Francisco, said forming alliances is often “a sign of desperation” and not “necessarily an effective campaign tool.”
The alliance is “meaningless” for Safaí and Farrell, Ross said, as neither is likely be the top two candidates in the last round. Recent polls released by San Francisco Chronicle and Aaron Peskin’s campaign showed Breed, Lurie and Peskin are the leading candidates.
Another poll from TogetherSF showed London Breed leads with 25 percent of first-place votes, while Farrell and Lurie tie with 21 percent, and Peskin follows with 20 percent. In this case, Farrell could possibly benefit from Safaí’s second-place votes.
In the meantime, however, Safaí’s decision to make the alliance could diminish his six-percent-or-so share of first-round votes.
Last week, the National Union of Healthcare Workers rescinded its second-place endorsement of Safaí because of his alliance with Farrell, and endorsed Lurie as its No. 2 instead. The union also asked Safaí to return its $500 contributions to his campaign.
“Unfortunately, former supervisor Farrell has a long track record of supporting corporate interests in the city, and Supervisor Safaí’s alliance with him is disqualifying, in the eyes of our executive board,” said Sal Rosselli, president emeritus of the union.
An hour and a half in, the Thursday merchant walk ended at Excelsior Avenue and Mission Street. Safaí and Farrell, standing in front of a mural, started filming a TikTok video together.
After, Safaí would likely return to his Mission campaign headquarters; just a few hours earlier, someone had used a brick to shatter the glass door at its entrance. There are less than two weeks to go before the election, and fundraising calls need to be made.
I sincerely hope they both crash and burn. Farrell is corrupt. Ahsha sold out.
Ignorant comment. San Francisco is now run by a cartel of 247 nonprofits, some 100% dependent on taxpayer dollars and 9 overlapping agencies without accountability , bilking the city out of 16 billion dollars annually while it turns Market Street and FIDI into a ghost town, cuts the police force by 600 officers, and chases conventions,small business and tourists out of town, but gives us a Thursday night street party (how many millions did we spend on that). There are Federal investigations on various sordid contract deals at city hall. And uninformed people want to elect a zero-experience neophyte trust funder who has no idea how to run a city government.Vote them out now if you have a conscience
Well, unfortunately for Safaí I didn’t yet fill out my ballot. Now that he’s campaigning with Farrell I’ll be leaving him off the ballot *entirely* along with Farrell and Breed.
Pathetic.
Corrupt and “unapologetically” (his fave word) entitled Mark Farrell and shady Ahsha Safai made a deal. Here’s hoping it fails spectaculary. Yucko.
This looks like a London Breed Production, except instead of non profits, shady politicians. The City doesn’t need this.