San Francisco voted on Election Day with several local contests still up for grabs, and the city’s most watched races were already drawing crowds before any results were in. Mission Local had reporters moving across San Francisco, talking with voters as ballots were cast and watch parties began to fill.
The stakes reached from the Board of Supervisors to the city’s school board and City College board, while several propositions asked voters to decide the fate of the Great Highway, hundreds of millions in affordable-housing funds and whether Mayor Daniel Lurie would gain new powers. In that mix, the race between Scott Wiener and Connie Chan stood out because voters were being asked to settle who would next represent San Francisco in Congress, a contest described as the first real choice in that seat in near 40 years.
At Standard Deviant in the Mission, three school board candidates — Autumn Brown Garibay, Alida Fisher and Phil Kim — arrived for an election watch party hosted by SF Parents Action, the advocacy arm of the SF Parent Coalition. Fisher and Kim already hold seats on the school board, while Brown Garibay was one of five new faces seeking an open seat. Brown Garibay kept her comments brief and said, “I did my best.” She added, “That’s all I can say.” Fisher, meanwhile, said, “I’m optimistic about me but I’m more excited about what’s happening nationally.”
Near Castro station, dozens of Scott Wiener supporters crowded the intersection as afternoon commuters headed home, and the scene only grew louder when Wiener himself appeared and was pressed for photos. “Hey Scott Wiener I voted for you!” one supporter shouted, while an unidentified man cut through the noise with, “Whoa, everyone’s showing their wiener.” Two interns even turned up in an inflatable wiener dog costume, a reminder that San Francisco’s politics can slide from serious to absurd in a matter of seconds.
The Castro later drew another burst of attention when Nancy Pelosi, Paul Pelosi and Christine Pelosi showed up to stump for Gary McCoy in his District 8 supervisor bid, leaving people on the street looking confused, excited and stunned. That is the shape of Election Day in San Francisco: multiple races, multiple watch parties and a city waiting for the count. Live election results were expected later as the votes came in, and the first numbers would show whether the day’s energy translated into actual leads or only into noise.
