Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, San Francisco’s most influential political group that has spent millions of dollars supporting moderate candidates and policies in recent elections, emailed supporters on Monday to back two candidates challenging Mayor London Breed, while urging them to remove one candidate from the ballot entirely.
The email from Neighbors called Aaron Peskin, the most progressive of the primary candidates, a “threat” and encouraged voters to remove District 3 Supervisor from the ballot and instead vote for either moderates Mark Farrell or Daniel Lurie as their first and second choices.
Officials wrote that Breed was given a slight in the No. 3 spot because she “has not demonstrated the ability to govern with the degree of tenacity and consistency necessary to solve San Francisco’s problems.”
San Francisco has a ranked choice voting system in which voters rank candidates and then reallocate the votes of losing candidates until the candidate who receives a majority wins.
While the email was a scathing attack on Mayor’s performance six years in office, Neighbors’ strongest criticism was directed at Peskin.
“We believe Aaron Peskin’s position as a mayoral candidate poses a very real threat to the future of San Francisco,” the agency wrote. “Mr. Peskin’s ideologically extreme policies have contributed to many of the problems plaguing our city today. However, his candidacy should not be underestimated, as he is likely to attract a significant number of votes.”
“It’s not surprising,” said Jim Stearns, a campaign adviser to Peskin. “We now know where the big Republican money is going. It’s going to Farrell and Lurie. It’s fantastic.”
The decision to endorse both Farrell and Lurie as first-choice candidates came as something of a surprise, as the group has proven particularly close to the Farrell campaign. A spokesman for Lurie’s campaign declined to comment.
“The reality of ranked choice voting (RCV) heavily influenced our decision,” Neighbors officials wrote, citing a recent poll Neighbors conducted for FM3. “We considered that while most members would be able to reach their own conclusions about who they would vote for Mayor, they would likely need more information about the impact of RCV.”
The poll found Breed, Farrell and Lurie in a “statistical tie” for the number of initial first-place votes. The campaigns did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
It’s been a tumultuous past few months for Neighbours, which not only had to explain its close ties to Farrell’s election campaign but was plunged into crisis in May when allegations of sexual assault emerged against its executive director, Jay Chen, though the group’s board ultimately voted to keep him in his role.
Neighborhood board members will hold conference calls with members on Tuesday and Thursday to discuss their support for the mayoral race as well as the elections for superintendent and school board.
