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Four data takeaways from San Francisco’s November election

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. TurnoutIn 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 […]

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How much did your vote cost in the S.F. November election?

No matter who you voted for in November, there’s one thing that everyone could agree on: This was a costly election. Campaigns and political groups spent more than $72 million on different races and the 15 local ballot measures, trying to work their magic on a total of 522,265 registered voters. But how has their money worked for them? For Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie, quite well. Lurie, a first-time candidate who was bolstered by $16.2 million including outside spending, won with 55 percent of the vote (182,303 votes). The cost: $156.14 for each first-choice vote. That makes him by far the politician who spent the most on a dollar-per-vote basis. His rivals had much smaller war chests and spent much less per vote: London Breed and her allies spent $58.86 per vote, Aaron Peskin $34.27, and Mark Farrell $85.03, making Farrell, who finished fourth, […]

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Aaron Peskin didn’t win the election. But his propositions sure did.

San Francisco Board of Supervisors president, mayoral candidate, and wildly prolific legislator Aaron Peskin lost the election to Daniel Lurie, a wealthy candidate with zero legislative experience. But his three main ballot initiatives are winning and will, barring unforeseen lunacy, pass into legislation. Here’s the story of how they made it. Prop. CCreating a position for an inspector general with the power to investigate government and city contractor fraud, waste, abuse or misconduct would seem like a tough measure to oppose. It didn’t require any new funding, every single member of the Board of Supervisors voted to put it on the ballot, and corruption scandals have been breaking at a steady clip for years. But GrowSF, TogetherSF Action and the San Francisco Democratic Party all came out against it. It got 60 percent of the preliminary vote anyway. Partly that’s because Peskin […]

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Daniel Lurie leads after strange and terrible election night: Analysis

It’s a shame that San Francisco’s fascinating election results can’t be viewed in isolation from the strange and terrible returns that propelled Donald Trump once more to the presidency. But the luxury of ignoring the bigger picture is something San Francisco no longer gets to do. As of a shade before 1 a.m., every last in-person vote was tabulated — 37,345 of them (20,000 provisional votes are pending). In-person voting is a bit like shaving with a straight-edge razor or knitting your own pot-holders: You could do it if you wanted to, but hardly anybody does. At present, 234,453 votes have been counted; a shade under 45 percent. The Department of Elections expects around 157,000 more votes to trickle in (including those 20,000 provisional ballots). That would result in perhaps a 75 percent turnout; San Francisco voters show up at an average […]

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Election extra! Neighbors for a Better San Francisco gives $89K to No on K

Mission Local is starting an election blog for the week before Nov. 5, updating San Francisco voters on the small twists and turns of the campaign trail in the home stretch before Election Day. Sunday, Nov. 3: Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, big-spending political group, goes all-in against Prop. K — and Matt BoschettoNeighbors for a Better San Francisco, the deep-pocketed political group that has become one of the top-spending outfits in city politics, has given $89,000 to fight Proposition K, the measure to close the Upper Great Highway to cars. The give is the second-biggest campaign donation from Neighbors during this election cycle, after its $950,000 spend on Prop. D, the TogetherSF measure to cap the number of city commissions and expand mayoral power, while restricting police oversight. Like the Prop. D spending being used by mayoral candidate […]

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