S.F. Republicans want Joel Engardio gone. So do progressives. 

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San Francisco, says the political consultant Jim Ross, “has a history of strange bedfellows.” The campaign to recall District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio has officially joined those ranks. 

At a time when political polarization is high, San Francisco’s Republican Party and (some) progressive Democrats have found a rare moment of mutual agreement in their desire to remove Engardio from office.

The recall campaign is helmed by former progressive staffers and, on the eve of the recall’s kickoff rally last month, the local Republican Party urged its members to hit the streets, knock on doors and get out the vote for the upcoming Sept. 16 election to recall Engardio. 

“Engardio is waging a war on cars,” the San Francisco Republican Party wrote of Proposition K, which Engardio and four other supervisors placed on last November’s ballot. “It’s District 4 residents who are paying the price.” 

The recall campaign, for its part, said it’s not directly coordinating with the Republican Party. 

“They support this issue, and it’s their right to support this campaign and help out,” said Jamie Hughes, the recall’s campaign manager, who used to manage volunteers on Aaron Peskin’s mayoral campaign.

“Our campaign knows no ideology. The Republican folks are just another group of people who feel betrayed by him,” Hughes said. 

That sense of betrayal stems from Prop. K, which closed a section of the Great Highway to cars and turned it into a park for pedestrians, skaters, and cyclists. It passed citywide with nearly 55 percent of the vote. 

Where it did not pass, however, was in Engardio’s district, where 64 percent of his constituents voted against it. The park, now known as Sunset Dunes, officially opened in April to crowds of delighted park-goers and a caravan of cars with Recall Joel Engardio signs honking their horns in protest. 

Eric Jaye, a campaign consultant, agrees with Ross that the alliance is not unusual. “You can be a progressive, a moderate or a conservative, and want your elected officials to side with you,” he said. “The core issue at stake is not ideological.” 

Jaye has also voiced support for Engardio’s recall. “Longtime residents see the neighborhoods they love disappear and more people and traffic arrive,” he wrote. “And so far it is only the ‘progressives’ fighting for them.”

Former Peskin staffers vs. former TogetherSF staffers

But progressives helping Engardio’s recall appear to be using the district-wide ire over Prop K. to do some score-settling, too. Among them: Engardio’s support of previous recall elections, like the 2022 school board recalls and the one to remove progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin. 

“He leads recalls, but thinks he’s untouchable,” wrote Otto Pippenger, the recall’s field organizer and a District 4 resident, in an official list of pro-recall arguments submitted to the Department of Elections. “Karma is a bitch.” 

All three paid staff on the recall campaign — Hughes, Pippenger and Forrest Cameron — worked for Peskin’s mayoral campaign. 

The Stand With Joel campaign, meanwhile, is helmed by organizers and consultants formerly working for TogetherSF, a defunct political pressure group led by self-described moderates which recently rebranded as Blueprint for a Better SF after a dismal showing in the last election.

Those staffers include Josh Raznick, Stand With Joel’s campaign manager; and Devin McAndrew-Greiner, a campaign consultant. 

The campaign has raised more than $667,000 as of July 7, four times as much as the recall campaign. The biggest sum came from Chris Larsen, founder of cryptocurrency company Ripple, who contributed a total of $200,000.  

The Stand With Joel campaign and Engardio ally Sen. Scott Wiener have seized on the recall’s support from the Republican Party as “a conservative backlash against having an affordable, livable city.” 

Some of the pro-recall paid arguments cited Engardio’s support of longstanding plans to upzone the city’s western neighborhoods as a reason to get him out of office.

But they also display an eclectic array of grievances, including failing to contest rising garbage collection rates and “taking credit for” the wildly popular Sunset Night Market, which has recently been shelved. 

What happens if the recall prevails?

If the recall is successful, Mayor Daniel Lurie will get to appoint a replacement for Engardio. That replacement is unlikely to be a progressive; neither Lurie nor District 4 as a whole have particularly progressive leanings. 

Still, Hughes said, a recall makes it more likely that a different candidate could run a successful race in District 4 in the future, since appointed incumbents tend to not have the same advantages as elected ones. 

“It gives people more options,” he said. “If you don’t recall Joel Engardio, then he’s the incumbent supervisor running for reelection in 2026.” 

Since San Francisco brought back district-wide elections in 2000, an elected incumbent has rarely lost a re-election. The first to do so was Gordon Mar in 2022 — to Joel Engardio.

“It’s always easier to beat an appointee than an incumbent. A four-year incumbent is in a very powerful position for reelection, especially when they have more money,” Pippenger said. “Joel is going to have incumbency and he’s going to have money, if he remains in office.” 

Although San Francisco is known as one of the most liberal cities in the country, in District 4, some 9,000 residents voted for Donald Trump last year. Having the local Republican Party’s support may not be an intuitive advantage in a citywide election, but locally, it might just help. 

Lurie secured the first-place endorsement from the San Francisco Republican Party last year. And he won.