At a meeting of the San Francisco Democratic Party at the Asian Pacific American Community Center in Visitacion Valley on Wednesday, District 8 supervisor candidate Manny Yekutiel secured the party’s endorsement by the slimmest of margins: 12 votes for him versus 10 votes for “no endorsement.”
The decision to endorse Yekutiel despite a credible allegation of sexual assault against him may help decide the city’s most controversial race in recent memory.
Aside from all but anointing Yekutiel, the endorsement raised critical questions about the local Democratic Party’s commitment to investigate sexual wrongdoing by local politicos, and whether its judgment on Yekutiel’s case, which came the morning of the endorsement vote, was inappropriate.
The group already decided endorsements for supervisor districts 2, 4, 6, and 10 on July 22. DCCC Chair Nancy Tung told Gazetteer SF in July that she had pushed the party’s District 8 endorsement meeting to August due to a sexual assault allegation against Yekutiel, the frontrunner in the race, by political organizer Brad Chapin. Chapin’s report also triggered an internal investigation by the DCCC.
That internal investigation concluded on Wednesday morning with a letter from the DCCC’s Judicial Commission chair, Gina Roccanova, telling Tung that the accusation “cannot be substantiated.” (Gazetteer obtained the letter from Tung.)
“By both parties’ assessment, the event in question is not claimed to have occurred at an official meeting or at any sponsored event of the SFDCCC or any chartered club, and was not in the context of any official or unofficial communication or interaction in the context of conducting any political activity,” Roccanova wrote. “This is not a determination on the merits of whether a sexual assault occurred.”
The first person to speak during the grueling two-hour public comment period at Wednesday’s endorsement meeting was Chapin, who excoriated the DCCC for leading him into a legal battle that it was ultimately unable to adjudicate.
“When I went to your attorneys, I asked them explicitly if this was a waste of my time, because none of this happened at a Democratic Party event,” a visibly distraught Chapin said. “You knew that. This is a sham.”
“Manny had about 45, 50 people here at the beginning, so most all of this public comment is going to be in support of someone credibly accused of sexual assault,” Chapin continued. “Not just by me. I’m the only one who came out publicly. You should all be fucking ashamed of yourselves.”
After a beat, Chapin returned to the mic and added: “Sorry, not all of you. But you know who you are.”
The next speaker, Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club official Raya Steier, told the DCCC members that it is “absurd” its internal investigation into Yekutiel concluded the same day as the endorsement meeting.
“Endorsing Manny Yekutiel means the DCCC does not care about sexual assault and is failing victims,” Steier said.
Chapin, a former board member of the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, accused Yekutiel of sexual assault in June, which was first reported by the San Francisco Standard. Chapin alleged the assault happened at a house party in 2020, claiming that Yekutiel pushed his hand down Chapin’s pants, grabbed him by the genitals, and then attempted to penetrate him with a finger.
Chapin told the Standard and other local media that he was motivated to speak out this year because of Yekutiel’s running for office; Chapin filed a police report in April, but prosecutors ultimately did not charge Yekutiel with a crime. Yekutiel denied any wrongdoing and repeatedly suggested the allegation was a political gambit to sink his candidacy for supervisor.
“I didn’t do what these accusations suggest, and I do think it’s because I am here and I’m running for office that this is coming out now,” Yekutiel told KQED in July.
The DCCC’s Special Committee on Sexual Assault and Harassment also initiated an internal review of Chapin’s accusation, but investigators only met with Chapin more than four months after he first filed a report with the DCCC. Tung admitted to the San Francisco Chronicle in July that the investigation had been derailed by delays and that leaders “need to do better.”
Chapin’s case was the first real test for the Special Committee since its formation in December 2024, after assault allegations against a local Democratic club leader led to his ouster. Multiple alleged victims in that case claimed that the DCCC had ignored their reports, which led the party to form a group that would review claims of sexual misconduct by party officials, members of chartered Democratic clubs, and candidates seeking a party endorsement.
Any potential misconduct reported to the Special Committee is considered by an independent ombudsperson, followed by a fact-finding process by SF-based law firm Gibson Dunn, then an assessment by a neutral three-person “adjudication panel” that makes a final determination, according to the DCCC’s code of conduct policy.
Per that policy, the fact-finding process is supposed to take “no more than two months” unless the “facts and circumstances merit a longer inquiry.” The adjudication panel for Chapin’s case only convened on Tuesday, just one day before the party’s endorsement meeting.
Despite the late conclusion of its investigation, the DCCC almost deadlocked in a tie on Wednesday. The endorsement of Yekutiel came down to a last-minute plot twist from District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who backed Yekutiel’s opponent, political organizer Gary McCoy, in the first two rounds of ranked-choice voting. The third and final round left DCCC officials with three choices: Voting for Yekutiel, no endorsement, or abstaining from the vote altogether.
Instead of choosing no endorsement, Dorsey took a pause before stating “Yekutiel,” a move that inspired some surprised looks from the board.
On the other hand, District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who previously personally endorsed Yekutiel, chose to abstain from the vote. It is unclear whether he is sticking with that endorsement; Mahmood did not respond to a request for comment by Gazetteer, but in July said he is reconsidering his decision and waiting for the results of the DCCC investigation.
The DCCC endorsement gives Yekutiel an edge over McCoy in a hotly contested race to represent District 8, which covers the Castro, Noe Valley, and other neighborhoods. McCoy touts endorsements from both the progressive-left Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club and the more moderate Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club, among many others.
In his official August questionnaire for endorsement consideration by the DCCC, Yekutiel responded to a question about what he has done to “support survivors of sexual harassment and assault.”
“I’ve experienced this myself, and it's shaped how seriously I take it,” Yekutiel wrote. As supervisor, Yekutiel wrote, he’d push for “clear, accessible reporting channels, not processes that discourage people from coming forward.”
“A slow process is its own form of harm to a survivor,” he wrote.
