Ranked-choice could pick next S.F. mayor
If polling trends continue, San Francisco’s June special election may be the first in which a mayoral race is determined by the roll-of-the-dice nature of the city’s rankedchoice voting system.
Unlike past ranked-choice elections, where frontrunners Mayors Ed Lee and Gavin Newsom commanded big leads out of the gate, the current race has yet to see any of the four major candidates establish a strong lead.
The latest poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research
found that former state Sen. Mark Leno was the first pick of 29 percent of those surveyed — putting him in a virtual tie with Board of Supervisors President London Breed, who came in with 27 percent of the first-pick votes.
Supervisor Jane Kim came in with 17 percent and former Supervisor Angela Alioto with 6 percent.
The other four candidates had 12 percent total, and the remaining 9 percent of respondents were undecided.
Under the ranked-choice results, the bottom finishers are sequentially eliminated and their votes redistributed until someone gets a majority.
When the poll factored in voters’ second and third picks, Leno came out on top with 52 percent to Breed’s 48 percent.
The kicker, however, is that 46 percent of the 610 voters surveyed described their support for their candidate as “weak.”
“I don’t think any of the candidates have burned through to the electorate,” said political consultant Jim Ross, who is consulting on an independent committee supporting Kim.
The phone and Internet survey was conducted from March 28 to April 3 in both English and Cantonese and has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.
The poll was paid for by the gay advocacy group Equality California and a consortium of hotel, health care and other unions that are friendly to both Leno and Kim.
The findings, however, are similar to another private poll on a ballot initiative in the June election that showed Breed leading the pack, but with support only in the mid-20s, with Leno a point behind and Kim following close on his heels.
“This election is wide open, and the candidate who makes the best case in the final seven weeks will win the election,” said political consultant John Whitehurst, who has run past mayoral campaigns in San Francisco and Oakland.
Whitehurst said all of the candidates have largely positive images with the voters, meaning that none of the top four is viewed so negatively that people won’t vote for him or her as their second or third choice.
“This is going to be decided by everybody’s second- and third-choice votes,” Ross said.
The Leno and Kim campaigns are already executing a “one-two” strategy, with the candidates endorsing each other as their No. 2 choice.
Breed has not endorsed anyone else, and neither has Alioto.
“But they have all asked,” Alioto said. Vanishing money: In what could be a major setback for her mayoral campaign, former Supervisor Angela Alioto has been denied public funds for the June special election, leaving her as the only major candidate out of the loop for what could be up to $975,000 in matching money to help sway voters.
“I was stunned — we need this to stay even with the other candidates,” Alioto said after getting word that the city’s Ethics Commission had ruled she had came up short on the needed local donors to qualify.
Under city rules, mayoral candidates must show that they have raised at least $50,000 in campaign contributions from 500 or more city residents in amounts of $10 to $100.
Once approved, candidates get an initial $100,000 match that could grow to $975,000 as they continue to raise money.
Candidates London Breed, Mark Leno and Jane Kim have all qualified and received their first $100,000.
Alioto waited until the filing deadline of March 27 to request matching funds. She reported a total of $103,273 in contributions — $53,237 of which was submitted as proof that she was eligible for matching funds.
After reviewing the forms, however, the city’s Ethics Commission informed Alioto that she had failed to include the full information on 280 local donors.
The “missing information” included such things as listing donor post office boxes or business addresses instead of home addresses, and providing incomplete information on donor occupations.
Alioto said she was told of the problem on the evening of April 5 — a day before the April 6 deadline for final review.
“We were trying to track down and contact hundreds of people,” Alioto said. “There just wasn’t enough time.”
The campaign did submit what documentation it had, but again came up short on the needed information.
On April 11, Alioto was informed that she was being denied.
Alioto said she has mixed feelings about even asking for public money, “but this special election is just two months away, and there is no way you can raise enough money to run a campaign if you have a $500 limit on every donation.”
Alioto is appealing the decision and seeking more time to comply. The Ethics Commission has set a hearing for Friday.
“It’s a matter of fairness,” Alioto said. “Every other candidate is getting the matching funds.”