It’s been three weeks since the Nov. 5 election in San Francisco, the votes have all been counted, and we can identify some interesting data tidbits from this year’s races.
We’ve already written about the role that redistricting played this year. Here are some other takeaways.
1. Turnout
In 2020, turnout reached a near-record high of 86.3 percent in the presidential election. This November, turnout was a far cry from that: 78.9 percent.
San Francisco’s average turnout in presidential elections, going back to the 1916 election of Woodrow Wilson to a second term, is 77 percent. So this year was just slightly above average; there was no “Trump bump,” as in the last two general elections, but numbers were more in line with other years.
“There wasn’t that last extra spark that takes presidential turnout from good to great,” said Eric Jaye, a San Francisco campaign strategist. “Some [voters] are disillusioned with the choices that were offered. Enough of them stayed home, which was enough to slightly depress turnout.”
About 412,000 people voted in this year’s general election, 38,000 fewer than in 2020 — even though the total number of registered voters is about the same: 522,265 in this election compared to 521,099 in 2020. Fewer people voting in San Francisco is on par with state and national trends: Turnout in California was 17.2 percent lower than in 2020, according to the Associated Press.
Turnout in the S.F. November election was not high
Chart by Junyao Yang, updated by Kelly Waldron. Data from the San Francisco Department of Elections.
While turnout was not particularly high for a presidential election, more voters than ever before weighed on some of the local races, including the races for mayor, district attorney, city attorney, treasurer and sheriff. That’s thanks to 2022’s Proposition H, which shifted the election for some races from odd years, when few vote, to even years, when turnout is high.
That likely made more of a difference for the mayoral election, but less so for races like district attorney and city attorney, which were far less contested.
Jaye said that, in this election, campaigns typically spent less time turning people out to vote, and more time convincing them to vote for their candidate. That meant more budget spent on “media-centric persuasion” (ads) rather than field organization (knocking on doors, making phone calls).
Map by Kelly Waldron. Data from the San Francisco Department of Elections. Note: Precinct 9723 includes a turnout rate of above 100 percent, as reported by the Department of Elections.
2. Geographic divides
Geography played a big role in many of November’s races. Perhaps the starkest divide of all was the split on Proposition K, the measure to close the Great Highway to cars.
Map by Kelly Waldron. Data from the San Francisco Department of Elections.
Voters in districts closer to the Great Highway voted overwhelmingly against the measure; that’s Districts 1, 4, 7 and 11. But it was a citywide measure, and passed 55-45, a 35,600-vote difference.
“The impacts are incredibly geographic,” added Jim Stearns, Aaron Peskin’s political consultant, who also likened it to the Proposition E of 1998, which prevented the Central Freeway from being rebuilt, and kept Octavia Boulevard a ground-level road. Voters on the Westside strongly supported having the freeway at the time.
The outcome of Prop. K is likely a problem for District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio, who oversees the Sunset and placed the measure on the ballot. “The voters in his district are overwhelmingly against this,” said Jaye. “That doesn’t go down well.”
Some geographic divides are also apparent in the supervisor race results, namely in Districts 7 and 9.
In District 7, incumbent Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who won, gained the most first-choice votes, 35 precincts overall.
Map by Kelly Waldron. Data from the San Francisco Department of Elections.
However, the 15 precincts that her opponent, Matt Boschetto, did win are all concentrated in the same area: Around West Portal, Forest Hills and St. Francis Wood. Those represent the most conservative neighborhoods in the district.
In those same precincts, more voters supported Proposition D, to cut commissions and empower the mayor and police chief, and Proposition F, to defer retirement for police officers, than voters citywide did (51 percent vs 43 percent citywide for Prop. D, and 49 percent vs 45 percent citywide for Prop. F). Fewer of those voters supported the bond propositions and Proposition L to tax ride-hailing vehicles (48 percent vs 57 percent citywide).
Likewise, in District 9, the precincts won by Supervisor-elect Jackie Fielder and those won by her primary opponent Trevor Chandler are split between more progressive and less progressive neighborhoods. Fielder won the precincts across the Mission District and Bernal Heights — all the precincts north of Alemany Boulevard. Chandler won those south, in the Portola, which represents a more conservative voter base (Chandler won 34 percent of first-round votes there, vs. 29 percent for Fielder).
Map by Kelly Waldron. Data from the San Francisco Department of Elections.
3. Money
At least $72 million was spent in the November election across all races. But money didn’t always prevail.
The most expensive campaign was Daniel Lurie’s winning $16 million run for mayor, funded in large part by himself ($8.7 million), but also by wealthy donors who gave to a PAC supporting him. While Lurie did benefit from a solid team of strategists and consultants, the resources that he had to build name recognition, pay staffers, attack his opponents and knock on doors certainly helped.
Big dollars propelled Lurie’s mayoral campaign
Streams show total flows of money going to candidate committees and PACs supporting the top candidates
Chart by Kelly Waldron. Data from the San Francisco Ethics Commission.
Lurie’s race wasn’t the only expensive ticket on the ballot, though. Proposition D, the TogetherSF measure to reform commissions and strengthen the mayor, also raised a massive sum: $9.5 million. But that fundraising did not secure a win: The measure was strongly rejected by a 13 percent margin (that’s 48,887 votes).
Remarkably, Proposition E, the competing measure, only raised some $69,000 (together with Proposition C), and still passed. That’s less than 1 percent of the funds raised by the Proposition D committee.
Prop. D raised over $9.5 million, while Prop. E raised $69,159
Chart by Kelly Waldron. Data from the San Francisco Ethics Commission.
In the supervisor races, which raised a total of $11 million, money did seem to boost some candidates in the most contentious contests.
Connie Chan, the incumbent who won in District 1, benefited from more than $1 million in third-party spending from labor groups, which was more than what her opponent Marjan Philhour received from PACs, about $346,000.
Likewise in District 11, Chyanne Chen, who won by 196 votes, was bolstered by some $600,000 in outside labor-backed spending. Michael Lai received some $282,000 in outside spending from groups like GrowSF and the Abundance Network.
4. Redistricting
We’ve already written how the 2022 redistricting, a long and controversial process, changed the electorates in District 5 and 7, likely damaging Dean Preston but boosting Myrna Melgar.
Redistricting had effects elsewhere, too.
In District 1, some of the city’s wealthiest precincts, those in Seacliff, were tacked onto the district before Connie Chan’s run for re-election. In Seacliff, the proportion of residents who earn over $200,000 is 26 percent above the city’s average.
The redistricting was a known issue for Chan: Seacliff neighborhoods were widely expected to go for Marjan Philhour and provide hundreds of additional votes. They did: In new precincts, 52 percent of first-choice votes went to Philhour.
But that wasn’t enough for Philhour to win. Philhour’s campaign was hindered by several factors: Philhour was outspent, ran against an incumbent, and also ran as a close ally to Mayor London Breed, who proved to be unpopular in District 1 this election; Breed only won a single precinct in the district.
In District 3, Danny Sauter also got a boost from redistricting: He gained a few new precincts in Russian Hill, and won 45 percent of first-choice votes in the neighborhood. Sauter did maintain a strong lead in the district overall, winning 39 percent of the first-choice votes.
“That was really a moderate base for Sauter in that district,” said Stearns, referring to the new precincts. “Neither Aaron Peskin, nor Moe Jamil nor Sharon Lai did well in those precincts.”
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly cited a lower number of registered voters.
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