Engardio unseats Mar in board race
Progressive supervisor falls in rare loss for incumbent, concedes narrow defeat for District Four post in Sunset
San Francisco anti-crime crusader Joel Engardio has won election to the Board of Supervisors in District Four, narrowly defeating progressive incumbent Gordon Mar after a hardfought race.
Engardio, a moderate who was a strong backer of this year’s school board and district attorney recalls, had a slim lead on election night and maintained it as more ballots were tallied in the following days. He was ahead by fewer than 500 votes on Wednesday, with 50.9% in favor of Engardio compared with 49.1% for Mar, who was seeking a second term representing the Outer Sunset.
“I look forward to getting to work to create our best San Francisco,” Engardio told The Chronicle. “That’s what this was all about.”
Engardio’s win makes him the first person in 20 years to unseat a previously elected incumbent supervisor. Since 2002, the only incumbents to have lost their San Francisco supervisor races were mayoral appointees who were facing voters for the first time.
Engardio is among several moderates and allies of Mayor London Breed who won their races in this election, joined by others including the district attorney, District Six supervisor, a community college board member and two of Breed’s three hand-picked school board candidates. Issues such as crime, homelessness and housing ap
peared to be top of mind this year for residents.
Mar had hoped that the ballots counted after Election Day would trend in a more progressive direction — favoring him. But Mar never overtook his challenger, and on Wednesday he no longer had a path to victory based on the number of ballots left to count in District Four.
Mar conceded the race in a statement after the vote count was updated late Wednesday afternoon. He said he had reached out to Engardio to congratulate him.
“He worked hard on his campaign, and I hope he works just as hard on behalf of District 4,” Mar said. “This was a close race in a closely divided City. While I ran on our record, I understand that many viewed it as a referendum on City government, and voted for change.”
Mar, a former labor and community organizer, ran on a fullthroated defense of his record, telling Sunset voters that he was a trusted leader who’s consistently delivered for his district. He touted his work to build more affordable housing, coordinate public safety plans and push the police to develop community-based plans for foot and bike patrols, among other efforts.
Engardio, executive director of the Stop Crime SF advocacy group, sought to paint Mar as too progressive and out of step with what his district really wanted. He pointed in part to the incumbent’s opposition to the school board and district attorney recalls that the Sunset strongly supported. Engardio further aimed to characterize himself as a practical leader who could help City Hall get the basics of governance right — unlike Mar, who Engardio said would maintain a clearly deficient status quo.
This is Engardio’s fourth time trying to get elected to the board. He ran three previous failed campaigns in District Seven, the last one just two years ago. But after district boundaries changed during the city’s controversial redistricting process this year, Engardio’s home address was moved into District Four, allowing him to run against Mar.
Election results data indicates the precincts near Lowell High School that were moved into District Four during redistricting strongly supported Engardio, netting him 598 votes as of Tuesday.
Mar blamed his loss at least in part on the redistricting.
“I’m grateful that the District 4 I was elected to represent four years ago voted to elect me again, but our District lines have changed, and so did the outcome,” Mar said in his concession statement.
Engardio pushed back on that idea. He said District Four was “woefully underpopulated” and its boundaries had to grow to reflect the last decade of population changes, since supervisor districts are required to be roughly equal in size. He also pointed to the fact that he was ahead in precincts throughout the district.
“People chose me,” Engardio said. “It doesn’t make sense to say it was only because of redistricting.”
Engardio raised more money for his campaign, pulling in about $433,000 to Mar’s $422,000. But Mar benefited from a large amount of thirdparty spending led by the San Francisco Labor Council’s political action committee. Engardio’s campaign got a boost as well from a political action committee for the moderate-friendly advocacy group Grow SF.