Voters Back Mayor Lurie’s “Comeback”
The June 2026 elections delivered a political earthquake to San Francisco. Supposedly tight supervisor races in Districts 2 and 4 became landslide victories for Team Lurie-backed candidates. Two tax measures opposed by Mayor Lurie were defeated. The election occurred as the mayor’s team circulated ballot measures to increase his power. Likely impacted by the mayor’s political wins, Nancy Pelosi joined several supervisors and the San Francisco Democratic Party in backing all three of the mayor’s ballot initiatives in November.
What is San Francisco’s political mood midway through Mayor Lurie’s second year? Here’s our take.
Belief in the Mayor’s Strategy
Mayor Lurie won election pledging to restore pre-Covid San Francisco. He has relentlessly promoted his “Comeback” agenda, raising tens of millions of dollars of philanthropic support. Lurie has also spent over $1 million of his own money to promote his agenda. It is money well spent.
Voters back the mayor’s commitment to reviving downtown, Union Square, and the city’s overall economy. Support for the mayor’s agenda remains despite ongoing challenges. For example, San Francisco still has nearly a 30% downtown office vacancy rate. While the 5% drop in the past year is the largest of any city, this nearly 30% figure follows roughly $60 million in philanthropic donations to downtown.
The mayor declared a fentanyl emergency on his first day in office. He continues trying to stop sidewalk drug activity. Last week the mayor signed Supervisor Dorsey’s drug-free housing legislation, a step in the right direction.
But despite his efforts the mayor knows sidewalk drug use persists in many neighborhoods. A one-time top tier crisis has become old news. JJ Smith’s videos of open-air drug markets no longer draw much media attention. Few blame Lurie for not doing more.
The message of 2026 is clear: Voters feel that if Daniel Lurie can’t get downtown revived, tourism back, and the city to run more effectively, nobody in City Hall can do a better job. The mayor has much of the city rooting for him to succeed.
Why is Team Lurie Putting Democracy Up For Sale?
That’s what makes the mayor’s push for more power so unnecessary. What problem has Lurie lacked the power to solve that these “Clean Up City Hall” ballot measures will change?
I can’t think of anything. Lurie has a veto-proof Board majority. He has majority control of every major commission. No commission vote has gone against his stated interests.
San Francisco’s charter never stopped Mayor Willie Brown from exercising power. The idea that Brown needed more power was laughable (See “Willie Brown Didn’t Need Charter Amendments to Flex Mayoral Power,” March 30, 2026.) Mayor Ed Lee never complained about lacking power. Restraints on Mayor Gavin Newsom’s powers came not from commissions but from the Board.
One Lurie measure dramatically increases the number of signatures needed to qualify ballot initiatives. It rises from about 10,700 to 42, 000. Killing the ability of grassroots groups to qualify ballot measures does not “clean up city hall.” Here’s the mayor’s July 23 press release:
“For too long, city hall insiders have used the broken system they created as an excuse for their failure to deliver,” said Mayor Daniel Lurie.” Current law “incentivizes special interests to flood the ballot with poorly conceived, divisive, and often contradictory measures — forcing San Franciscans to fill out lengthy, confusing ballots that too often produce unintended consequences.”
Ballot initiatives were created to keep City Halls and state government accountable. They empowered people when politicians failed to deliver. As I previously detailed—“Who Loses By Restricting SF Ballot Measures?” March 16, 2026—-most of San Francisco’s major tenant protection measures came from ballot measures. Not City Hall.
City Hall insiders and special interests don’t need ballot initiatives. The “special interests” can pay whatever it costs to reach the higher signature requirements.
The “special interests” whose power is being reduced are tenants, workers, and others who can’t get a fair shake at City Hall. The measure eliminates a social justice strategy from their adversary’s toolbox.
It creates a corporate and billionaires-only zone for local ballot measures.
It’s disappointing to see Nancy Pelosi and the local Democratic Party put democracy up for sale in San Francisco. Eliminating grassroots ballot measures does nothing to clean up City Hall.
Last week “Fair Ballot Access” was created to oppose the signature-raising measure. The San Francisco Labor Council also opposes putting democracy up for sale.
Wealthy interests will spend millions on this initiative to kill grassroots ballot measures. And after they outspend opponents by 50-1 or more, they will claim if the measure wins that the voters have spoken.
The issue is not whether Mayor Lurie will abuse expanded powers. It’s whether giving a subsequent mayor the power to unilaterally reconfigure departments, hire and fire commissioners at will, and who lacks the guardrails of the initiative process puts San Francisco’s future at risk.
If a lack of power has thwarted Mayor Lurie, why do voters believe he has gotten so much done?
Randy Shaw has a chapter on why activists should use ballot measures and strategies for winning in The Activist’s Handbook.
