Of everything on the ballot on Tuesday, the DCCC was in my view the most important race. Now that results are finalized, let’s dig into how that race went!
But first, a bit of context on SF politics.
SF Politics in a Nutshell
This election was fundamentally a factional spat between two competing parts of the Democratic party — SF media calls these groups ‘Progressives’ and ‘Moderates’, although I’d advocate for ‘Leftists’ and ‘Liberals’ as more precise labels. The basic points of ideological tension here are over markets and public safety. Leftists are skeptical of the ability of markets (“capitalism”) to deliver societally beneficial outcomes — first and foremost housing outcomes — whereas Liberals are much more amenable to market solutions. On public safety, Leftists — a group that includes socialists and anarchists — generally aren’t too keen on policing as a solution, preferring solutions that address income inequality for instance. Liberals tend to reach for traditional policing more often.
By the way, I didn’t just make these labels up! In countries with more than two political parties, it’s very common for Liberals and Leftists to occupy different parties. A good example is Canada, which has the center-left Liberal Party, and further left New Democratic Party. It’s part of the weirdness of the American political system that these groups are both mashed into one, the Democrats.
YIMBYs tend to find themselves in the Liberal coalition, although that’s not uniformly the case. Liberals have been more willing to embrace housing abundance than Leftists, but a lot of YIMBYs are turned off by the public safety stuff. It’s not a relationship without some tension.
That was a bit of a long intro, but it’s important to understand the electoral playing field when interpreting election results. With that out of the way, let’s get into what happened!
Liberals won the DCCC
The DCCC, the most important race you’ve never heard of, swung decisively for Liberals on Tuesday. The DCCC is essentially the SF Democratic party, so whichever candidates win this race run the SF Democratic party. I say candidates, plural, because we elected a total of 24 candidates in this race (yes it was kind of a mess). The reason anyone cares about this prize is because the endorsements of the SF Democratic party matter a lot in local elections, and the party absolutely does endorse in races for Mayor and Supervisor.
Liberals and Leftists each ran a ‘slate’ of candidates for this body, hoping to achieve a majority. In AD17 (east side of the city) the top 14 candidates would qualify, and in AD19 (west side) the top 10 candidates. In AD17 Liberals secured 10 of 14 seats, and in AD19 Liberals got 8 of 10 seats.
This should have a big impact on November. The races to watch are:
Supervisor, District 1 — in the Richmond, Connie Chan is running a tough reelection race that just got tougher. This DCCC will definitely not endorse her — that will likely go to Marjan Philhour, who is emerging as the Liberal consensus candidate.
Supervisor, District 3 — in D3, Aaron Peskin is terming out (again) and likely running for Mayor, so we have a supervisor race with no incumbents. Aaron Peskin’s endorsement to succeed him, Moe Jamil, will be understood as a Leftist in SF politics and will not get the DCCC’s endorsement. Danny Sauter is the consensus YIMBY candidate at least, although I’m not actually sure if there are other prominent Liberals in the race looking for a DCCC endorsement.
Supervisor, District 5 — Dean Preston, the incumbent in this race, is the person in SF politics I’m most comfortable labeling as a Leftist, since he actually identifies personally as a Socialist. The DCCC’s endorsement will likely go to Liberal Bilal Mahmood. D5 is a proper Liberal/Leftist battleground district, so this will be another tight race to watch with interest.
Mayor — I actually don’t know enough SF inside baseball to speak with any authority on who this DCCC will endorse for Mayor. Of the four Liberal contenders (Incumbent London Breed, Ahsha Safai, Daniel Lurie, Mark Farrel), my understanding is that Breed and Farrel have the most clout here. And since this is race has ranked choice voting, it’s actually possible that multiple will be endorsed. With such a large majority on the DCCC, decisions like this may expose divisions within the Liberal faction — public safety and housing advocates often work together, but they don’t have the same top priorities.
"it's not a relationship without some tension" - truer words have never been said
Such a phenomenal breakdown, I’m going to start thinking in terms of “Leftists” and “Liberals” going forward in SF politics