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Theo Ellington declared a decisive victory over nine opponents on the ballot to be San Francisco’s next District 10 supervisor on Tuesday night.
By 8:45 p.m., early results showed that Ellington had received 68.6 of the votes. His main rival, Dion-Jay “DJ” Brookter got 31.4 percent, and J.R. Eppler was eliminated in the last round of ranked-choice voting.
Ellington has long been considered the front-runner. He had declared his candidacy 13 months ago but was seen as a top contender even earlier. He amassed strong endorsements — Mayor Daniel Lurie, the San Francisco Democratic Party and a suite of establishment figures backed him — and gobs of money.
That was even before a surprise $540,000 gift to a pro-Ellington PAC from cryptocurrency billionaire Chris Larsen, likely the largest contribution made in a supervisor race in city history.
The backlash from the contribution, stirred by his opponents who said Ellington would be influenced by tech money, raised some doubt as to his win.
Brookter and Eppler teamed up and jointly ran an “anti-billionaire” campaign against Ellington, and Ellington worked hard to dispel that image and distance himself from Larsen and other tech backers.
But when early results rolled in on Tuesday, Ellington and his team breathed a sigh of relief.
Ellington is the director of the Bayview’s Ruth Williams Opera House and a long-time city lobbyist. He had unsuccessfully run for the District 10 seat in 2018 at 29, the youngest candidate in the race, and came in third, getting approximately 20% of the votes.
He was a relative unknown that year, but this time around picked up endorsements from Lurie, former Mayor London Breed, Sen. Scott Wiener and former District 10 supervisor Malia Cohen.
He raised $495,000 for the race, a full $300,000 more than his nearest opponent, Brookter. The PAC supporting him brought in another $550,000.
The three front-runners expressed only minor policy differences during their campaigns.
While Brooker and Eppler have both advocated for permanently banning Flock, a license plate surveillance tool used by SFPD that has raised privacy concerns, Ellington has taken a more neutral stance, stating that he would support the technology with retention limits.
Ellington has also said that, if elected, he would aim to upzone the area surrounding the transit-heavy Third Street Corridor for mixed-use housing. Brookter has strongly opposed that idea, citing concerns over gentrification.
Those fistfuls of dollars bought canvassers and door-knockers able to fan out across one of San Francisco’s largest and most isolated districts.
Turnout in District 10 has historically been low. By 8:45 p.m. on Tuesday, early results of mail-in ballots showed that 19 percent of the district’s votes had been counted.
In San Francisco, day-of ballots tend to skew progressive, and Brookter and Eppler may potentially receive more votes as the week wanes on.
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