Big tech money helped end the progressive majority on Board of Supes — but didn’t win the overhaul some feared

It followed several key wins by so-called “moderate” groups. The former president of the board, Aaron Peskin, termed out of his tenure in District 3 (and lost his mayoral bid), opening the door for a victory by Danny Sauter, a community organizer who is considered more centrist than his main opponent — and Peskin’s choice — Sharon Lai. 

In District 5, which covers territory from the Panhandle into the Tenderloin, proud socialist Dean Preston lost out by a thousand votes to Bilal Mahmood, who ran on a platform of increasing market-rate housing production, increasing police staffing, and tackling the city’s fentanyl addiction crisis. 

Billionaire-backed PAC GrowSF’s biggest success of the election was the push to “Dump Dean.” Though Mahmood told Gazetteer SF last week that his campaign as a “pragmatic progressive” won voters via detailed policy goals, he was also supported by a number of dark-money PACs and right-wing donors like Y Combinator head Garry Tan (who infamously ranted that progressive electeds should “die slow”) and angel investor Ron Conway, who has a long track record as a Republican backer. 

That capital helped push a massive misinformation campaign about Preston, relying on cherry-picked conflicts and deliberately missing context in order to make him out to be a failure. A similar strategy was used against Peskin, and in both cases, the endless media coverage of crime, homelessness and disorder played a crucial role in convincing voters that they were directly responsible — as opposed to, say, blaming the inevitable aftermath of a generational pandemic and economic crash that destabilized workers and families alike. 

But the same groups faltered on almost all other fronts across the election.

In District 1, which includes the Richmond, progressive incumbent Connie Chan defeated Marjan Philhour, who had been backed by Families for a Vibrant SF, a tech-funded anti-progressive group. The same group supported former AIPAC lobbyist Trevor Chandler, who lost in a landslide to openly socialist newcomer Jackie Fielder in the District 9 race for the Mission and Bernal Heights. 

Prop D, TogetherSF’s ballot measure to increase mayoral powers and cut oversight, also failed, despite the financial backing of billionaire Michael Moritz. 

“To be realistic, the returns were minimal,” James Taylor, a professor and politics expert at the University of San Francisco, told Gazetteer in reference to the moderate-right push to eject progressives. 

The city did “move more red” on a number of issues, notably criminal justice reform and prison labor, reflecting a trend seen around the state and nation, Taylor said. And the choice for a moderate mayor is hardly a new thing for the city, though there’s historically been a balance between the politics of the mayor and the Board.

“Art Agnos and George Moscone are the only two examples you can point to in the last 50 years that show voters going for a real progressive mayor,” Taylor said. “Otherwise, SF voters have balanced a more moderate mayor with a more-or-less progressive Board of Supervisors. But now it appears we have a moderate mayor with a more moderate board.”

It’s possible that political analysts need to rethink their definitions of labels like “progressive” and “moderate,” to better define the city’s political trends. While Mahmood calls himself a progressive, for instance, the label seems at odds with some of his biggest supporters. That includes crypto billionaire Chris Larsen, who has railed against progressives and invested millions into propositions to increase policing and deregulate housing, and William Oberndorf, the conservative funder who leads the board of Neighbors for a Better San Francisco. 

Taylor points to the major demographic shift driven by the most recent tech boom, along with the flight of “older generation” San Francisco natives, as groundwork for the ongoing political shift in the city. 

“Former Mayor Ed Lee’s work to support the [tech industry] was instrumental. Some 300,000 San Franciscans left under Lee, and 400,000 new people came in,” Taylor said. 

If there’s a clear takeaway for anti-progressive forces, it’s that focusing a firehose of money and rhetoric at one controversial politician can work — and naturally, ultra-rich political influencers like Tan are celebrating the results of the “Dump Dean” campaign. 

But there is irony in the fact that Preston almost won that race: He won more first-place votes than Mahmood, despite all the Fox News antagonizing and mythmaking around his supposed failures. In a different light, it looks like Preston’s dedication to protecting vulnerable tenants, promoting non-carceral alternatives to policing, and aggressively pushing for more affordable housing development almost played out just right for his supporters. 

For all that San Francisco’s left is mourning the loss of a ‘progressive’ majority, it’s possible the Board of Supervisors will end up moving left, particularly under the next four years of a Trump administration. Fielder in District 9 is a bonafide socialist, and Chan and (likely) Chen may take advantage of their new job security to explore progressive policies without an election-season backlash. 

This year has been one of shifting political trends. These shifts feel more concentrated and urgent in a city of fewer than 800,000 people, comprising a collection of neighborhoods with distinct histories. But, despite a deep hunger for change in how the city is run, the powerplay by ‘moderates’ and conservatives failed in a number of ways. 

They wanted a revolt. They got far less.