The 5 New Rules of San Francisco Politics

Now that the dust has settled on the March 2024 elections, it’s time to look beyond the final vote tallies to see the broader city trends, less-than-obvious patterns, and the new rules for local politics.

Just look at recent history:  More than a few San Francisco elections have given birth to new political dynamics that have been felt in City Hall for years to come.

Take November 2011:  We observed that Asian-American voters could be a political force in The City, especially with a non-ideological, unifying candidate like Mayor Ed Lee.

In June 2016 and March 2020, we learned not only that left-leaning progressives had the winds at their back, but that control of San Francisco's Democratic County Central Committee (SF DCCC) does, in fact, matter.

In the 2022 recall elections, which included both the Board of Education and District Attorney, we discovered that San Francisco voters are willing to take drastic corrective measures when they feel duped by elected officials who seem to have their ladder up against the wrong wall.

So what new rules did we write in March 2024?  I’d propose these five new rules.

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New Rule #1:  Shared goals are as powerful as common enemies.

On the heels of the successful 2022 recalls, it would be easy to conclude that the secret to creating a movement in The City is to unify San Franciscans against an obvious boogie man.  That thesis gained some support when the coalition that brought about the recall vote wasn’t able to stay united enough in the election that followed to maintain control of the Board of Education.

But March 2024 proved that having a common enemy isn’t the only way to rally the troops.  A shared vision of tougher reforms in The City, activated both by individual ballot measures and a slate of party committee candidates, carried the day.  Some even suggested that national Democrats could learn a thing or two about crime and public safety messaging from their local counterparts.

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New Rule #2:  Moderates can finally organize.

The local rule of thumb has been that left-leaning progressives are better at organizing the political ground game.  But that clearly wasn’t the case in the recent March election.  It wasn’t just that moderates under the “SF Democrats for Change” banner won 10 out of 14 seats for the DCCC in District 17 and 8 out of 10 seats for the DCCC in District 19, but it was the manner by which they did it.

With a high degree of discipline to support members of their slate with lower name recognition, moderates consistently campaigned as a large unified group with residential door knocking, retail business sign placing, and phone banking efforts conducted virtually every day in February leading up to the March election date. 

This type of activity wasn’t just limited to Democrats.  Moderate Republicans organized under the “Briones Society” banner won control of the San Francisco Republican County Central Committee (RCCC) in part by outrasing their competitors by a 10 to 1 margin and then deploying those resources in a strategic and highly coordinated fashion.

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New Rule #3:  Voters will support tax cuts (sometimes).

San Francisco is traditionally a city that supports liberal ideals like creating a social safety net and taxing the wealthy.  But San Francisco in March showed that under the right circumstances, voters will support a tax cut — even one that benefits mostly wealthy real estate developers.

Mayor London Breed’s Proposition C ballot measure — which will cut taxes and make it more profitable for developers to turn empty downtown San Francisco offices into housing — passed by nearly a 53-to-47 percent margin.

Proposition C supporters were able to successfully communicate that tax cuts in support of a socially desirable outcome like increased housing should be part of the liberal playbook.  Can we expect to see more creative ways in the next four years to reduce aspects of the city and state’s large tax burden?

Maybe.

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New Rule #4:  Asian voter turnout is key.

While many local politicos initially worried about low March voter turnout overall, the final result of close to 47% turnout ended up being about what you would expect for an election during an uncontested presidential primary where President Biden’s victory wasn’t in doubt.

What is more interesting is the turnout among different demographic groups:  In precincts where Asian voters are above the citywide average, voter turnout was substantially lower.  

Furthermore, because a substantial percentage of Chinese city residents have historically declined to state a party preference — and thus cannot vote in the DCCC or RCCC party committee races — there exists a substantial yet unrealized opportunity to mobilize these voters.  That could make the difference in November’s mayoral race.

Candidates of all stripes would be wise to consider programs and policies that would energize Asian voter turnout such as reaffirming support for merit-based policies at Lowell High School, establishing more concrete plans to address anti-Asian hate, and the ideas to remedy the current underrepresentation of Asians in citywide elected office.

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New Rule #5:  March is really about November.

It’s not an accident that the one ballot measure that didn’t pass was Proposition B’s police staffing bill conditioned on future taxes — the only ballot measure that, due to the amendment process, was not submitted to voters as originally proposed.

That’s because The City’s current political playbook is to conduct polls to see what voters will support, then give those same voters a ballot measure that matches those polls and is all but assured to pass.

More practically, political consultants and pollsters can suggest a series of policies that are directionally what they hope to accomplish and keep trying variations of these policies until they poll at 70% support and know it’s a winner.

So if these ballot measures merely reflect current voter sentiment, why are they even on the ballot in March to begin with?  The new reality is that they are political instruments to galvanize support for the more consequential November election.

March may be over but the race to November has only just begun.

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