(The Center Square) Levi Strauss heir and homeless expert Daniel Lurie appears on track to defeat incumbent London Breed and become mayor of San Francisco, suggesting that the mayor’s recent efforts to reducing homelessness and crime were not enough to convince voters. Early returns also show voters might remember Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price.

Lurie, who entered the race as a political newcomer, ran on a platform specifically targeting the homeless after creating a large-scale nonprofit capable of providing housing and care to lower cost of homeless people.

Breed begin a late crackdown on the homeless, forcing individuals out of their tents to reduce the number of visible tents while the homeless remained on the streets.

San Francisco operates under a ranked-choice voting system where voters can rank up to ten candidates in order of preference, and after the first round, when everyone’s first choice is considered, if no one has a majority, the worst performing first round is taken into account. The candidate of choice is dropped and that candidate’s votes go to the voter’s second choice candidate. This process is repeated until a winner emerges.

At the time of publication, San Francisco estimates Lurie would receive 56.34% of the vote on the fourteenth ballot and elimination, with Breed at 43.66%. With half of the ballots still outstanding and California accepting properly postmarked ballots up to a week after Election Day, the winner may not be known for several days.

Breed became mayor despite falling behind in the vote count, so her emergence as mayor would not be without personal precedent.

While nearly two-thirds of voters chose to recall Thao and Price, voters may have excluded those blamed for the near doubling of violent crime in Alameda County between 2022 and 2023. Among the violent crimes in the Alameda County in 2023, three-quarters occurred in Oakland, where violent crime increased 238% between 2022 and 2023.

Gavin Newsom, Governor of California publicly detailed how Price delayed the deployment of prosecutors from the California National Guard and the California Department of Justice to the county to help fight crime, highlighting the situation within the prosecutor’s office.

Newsom too said Oakland needs to end its policy that police cannot pursue criminals. With Oakland bankrupt, the city is blame a drop in revenues linked to “perceived crime”, while making the bulk of budget cuts in public safety.

“When Oakland’s black community launched a recall of the mayor in January, motivated by rising crime (the city led the nation in auto thefts in 2023) and government dysfunction, progressives stood are mocked.” recalled recalls organizer Seneca Scott in Compact Magazine. “They laughed at our statement of intent and mocked our early organizing efforts. But their laughter subsided when we submitted more than 40,000 signatures, six weeks ahead of schedule.

Oakland NAACP Chapter Formed securities in July 2023, when he demanded that the district attorney prosecute criminals and that the city hire more police officers. With Thao’s recall — the City Council president will serve as mayor until a special election can be held — and Price’s successor to be appointed by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, the Scott and the Oakland NAACP have a chance to achieve the change they have organized more than a year for.

With 39% of votes counted for Alameda County and 36% in the city of Oakland, about two-thirds of voters in each jurisdiction support the recalls, which, although not requested, appear to be on the way. to succeed.