San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Breed digs in for difficult reelection bid
Mayor London Breed likes to invoke her difficult upbringing in San Francisco’s public housing when talking about her unlikely ascendancy to lead the city and how the determination and grit she learned in the neighborhood shaped her as a leader. Now, as she enters a fierce battle for reelection, she says her roots prepared her for the tough contest ahead.
“We grew up fighting,” Breed told a crowd of construction union supporters in late January. “Fighting was just what we did. Back then, I fought with my fist. And now I fight with my mouth — with the words that I say, but also with the deeds and what it is that I stand for.”
In her speech that followed, Breed offered a preview of the case she will make to voters when seeking another four years in office this fall — an argument she began to sharpen this week after winning passage of at least two of her three March ballot measures and delivering her annual State of the City address on Thursday. At Golden Gate Park’s Panhandle in late January, Breed spoke to union supporters about leading the city during the pandemic and supporting the construction of new homes, but an underlying theme of her remarks was that she’s ready to meet her opponents head on.
And her fight for political survival has become even tougher in the weeks since that Jan. 30 campaign speech.
In mid-February, Breed got a third major challenger to her reelection bid when Mark Farrell, a former city supervisor and appointed mayor, entered the race. The following week, the Chronicle released a poll showing that 71% of likely November voters disapproved of Breed’s job performance and Farrell would beat her in first-choice votes if the election were held now. At the end of the month, news broke that Macy’s was looking to sell and close its flagship store in Union Square, greatly compounding an already dire exodus of major retailers from the
once-booming shopping district. Despite those headwinds, Breed has been digging in to fight for reelection, and she began to bring her argument for winning another term into clearer focus this week.
She’s trying to remind voters of the aggressive measures San Francisco took on her watch to protect residents from COVID-19 early in the pandemic, winning national praise.
Even with San Francisco’s floundering economy, worsening overdose crisis, rampant property crime, widespread homelessness and steep housing costs, Breed argues that the city is in the early stages of a comeback. She’s pointing to a decline in reported crimes, an ongoing police-led crackdown on drug dealing, a reduction in homeless encampments and an influx of artificial intelligence companies.
And she’s holding up her March ballot measures as a sign she shares voters’ views on how to address crime, drug abuse and downtown’s economic recovery.
“I don’t begrudge people’s frustration. I don’t dispute these have been a tough five years,” Breed said in her State of the City speech Thursday at the Pier 27 Ferry Terminal. “But rather than destroying our city, these storms have revealed our strength, our indomitable spirit and our service to each other.”
Political observers and those who know Breed have described her as a tenacious leader who doesn’t give up easily. Reflecting on one of Breed’s early political trials, a city official told Politico in 2022 that when “people tried to count her out or erase her or tell her it wasn’t her time,” the experience “just made her more determined.” The union leader who introduced her at her January speech at the Panhandle called her “someone who doesn’t back up from a fight and knows how to win a fight.”
Rev. Amos Brown, a Breed ally, told the Chronicle after Breed’s State of the City address that her reelection chances hinge on whether voters “have what it takes to make an informed, rational decision.”
“The burden is on the citizens. It’s not about whether or not Mayor Breed has what it takes,” Brown said. “We’re not going to find anybody better than her. … San Francisco has a golden opportunity that it should not destroy by not making the right decisions” in November.
Breed made some thinly veiled swipes at her opponents during the Pier 27 address.
One of Farrell’s ideas to get more people downtown is to reopen all of Market Street to cars — an idea Breed panned without mentioning Farrell by name. She said such a proposal “will not move us forward, and it won’t magically revive downtown.” Farrell said in a statement after Breed’s speech that the progress she highlighted was “too little too late to convince voters she is the candidate to get San Francisco back on the right track.”
Farrell wasn’t the only mayoral candidate to criticize Breed after her speech. Daniel Lurie, a nonprofit founder and Levi Strauss heir running against Breed, said in a statement that her State of the City remarks did not “propose the magnitude of reform that our city desperately needs” and accused Breed of having “failed to deliver on (her) promises after more than a decade in office.”
Breed also appeared to take a shot at progressive Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, who is expected to enter the mayor’s race but has not formally announced his candidacy. Peskin is known for his record of trying to slow or stop some housing developments in the name of neighborhood preservation, and he and Breed recently clashed over his efforts to scale back city legislation designed to boost the construction of denser housing.
“On housing, we are changing our reputation as a city of ‘no,’ to a city of ‘yes.’ … Yes to any idea that overcomes obstruction and builds the new homes we so desperately need,” Breed said. “So
there is one housing ‘no’ I will commit to: Any piece of antihousing legislation that comes across my desk. I will veto. Every single one.”
In an interview after the speech, Peskin told the Chronicle the legislative changes he advanced were intended to fix an “unanticipated consequence” from earlier legislation that inadvertently paved the way for “270-foot towers along the waterfront.”
“If this is where the mayor wants to draw a line in the sand, she’ll be showing her hand (that)
she wants to destroy the city to save it,” Peskin said. “I heard her loud and clear, but I don’t think it’s a smart fight for her to pick.”
Overall, he said, he was shocked by what the mayor didn’t include in her State of the City speech.
“Not a word about affordability, not a word about tenant protections, eviction protections or about the neighborhoods, and not a word about small businesses under pressure,” Peskin said. “Only words about the future of downtown, only marketdriven solutions. I wanted to hear a lot more about … working people and the real things that the city can do to protect and further everyday San Franciscans’
struggles.”
Supervisor Myrna Melgar, however, said she thought Breed’s address was “the best speech I’ve ever heard her give,” describing her rhetoric as “visionary” and “specific.”
“I’ve had my struggles with the mayor. We haven’t always agreed on policy stuff,” Melgar said. “(But) nobody else has convinced me that they can do any better.”
As the media and her political opponents have increasingly criticized the state of San Francisco, Breed has consistently tried to counter the narrative — and argue that her critics aren’t doing enough to solve the problems they complain about. In
her January speech at the Panhandle, Breed said it’s easy for people to speak ill of San Francisco, but those who did so were “not backing up all that mess with solutions.”
She doubled down on that view during her State of the City address, referencing a 1910 speech from former U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt, who famously said “it is not the critic who counts” but rather the person who is “actually in the arena … who strives valiantly” and invests themself in “a worthy cause.”
“To those outside the arena watching from the sidelines who offer only criticism, I have a message for you,” Breed said. “San Francisco is not wearing the shackles of your negativity any longer.”
The remark was met with thunderous applause and a standing ovation from dozens of city officials and community leaders watching the speech.
After Breed concluded her remarks, a telling song blasted over the speakers: “Survivor,” the 2001 hit from girl group Destiny’s Child.
“I’m a survivor,” the song goes. “I’m gonna make it.”