The city's election update: D1 tightensBy Tim Redmond
The San Francisco Department of Elections has counted a bunch more ballots, and has run its first pass at ranked-choice voting. The good news is that the races in districts 3 and 11 are still solid -- John Avalos and David Chiu are well ahead.
But District One has tightened a bit. Eric Mar is at 51.6 to 48.3 for Sue Lee. And since Lee won the absentees, this one could get even closer. The problem is that downtown ran a two-person strategy, attacking Mar and urging votes for Lee and Alicia Wang -- so a lot of Wang's seconds are going to Lee. So far, so good, though.
The other interesting twist is the school board race, where Jill Wynns, the longtime incumbent who appeared about to lose her seat, is now back in the running. Norman Yee is far ahead in the lead, followed by Sandy Fewer. Rachel Norton is the next in line, narrowly ahead of Wynns, who is narrowly ahead of Bobbi Lopez. We'll watch this one closely.
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Comments (4)
One of the things about the Board of Supervisors is that, often times, one of them is elected Mayor at some point. By stamping out the election of conservative candidates for Supervisor -- like Joe Alioto and that Safari character out in District 11 -- the options for downtown are much more limited while the options for progressives are heightened. With the exception of Norman Yee, it is hard to see many prominent conservative candidates for Mayor. This is Ross' race to lose, it seems.
Posted by expatriate | November 8, 2008 04:27 AM
I'm hoping for the John Rizzo factor, i.e. that the later absentees fall for the more progressive candidates as they did in 2006 when Rizzo was running against Johnnie Carter.
Posted by s | November 8, 2008 09:32 PM
Inspired by Pirate Cat Radio and your blog I tried to run the ballot images myself. As of last night and it looks like Mar is still ahead by about 400 votes, winning 11369 (50.95%) to 10941 (49.05%).
I am not an election worker so it's possible there are still ballots out, I made some mistakes in processing the data (the OpenSTV software was used to do the count) but it looks like Eric Mar might barely squeak by.
Posted by dana | November 10, 2008 04:34 PM
Rizzo benefited from the absence of smear campaign against him. An effective smear campaign would have highlighted his opposition to neighborhood schools (his child does not go to the closest school, but to another, better one), and his likely opposition to military recruitment in our schools (he is a registered Green), among other issues.
Eric Mar had both of these positions -- and more -- thrown against him by the such reputable organizations as the SF Assn of Realtors, the Coalition for Responsible Growth (which wants to take SF on a sharp turn to the right), Plan C (whose sole reason for existence is to accelerate the conversion of rent controlled units into expensive condominiums, thus increasing property values and the profit margin for property speculators), and that most patriotic of corporations, PG&E, which funneled money to the "Yes on V" campaign to restore military recruitment of minors to our public schools.
That's the difference between John Rizzo and Eric Mar. John Rizzo, 2006 candidate for Community College Trust, managed to stay under the radar, as the stakes were so much lower for the neo-liberal forces that refuse to go away and die despite the collapsing economy. Not so Eric Mar, a candidate for the Board of Supervisors, where one vote can impede the wet dreams of one salivating luxury-condo developer.
Posted by SFAssnofRealtorsSuk | November 10, 2008 08:37 PM