Mayor London Breed concedes San Francisco mayoral race to Daniel Lurie
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie will be the next mayor of San Francisco.
Current San Francisco mayor London Breed conceded to him Thursday at City Hall, just two days after Election Day. Breed was thrust into the spotlight the night Ed Lee died back in 2017. She became acting mayor in the middle of the night and was later formally elected to the seat, serving more than six years in total.
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"Of course it's disappointing, but nevertheless the decision has been made," Breed said. "The campaign is over. It is time for us as a city to move forward."
While ballots are still being processed at City Hall, Mayor Breed is down in the votes and said she didn't see a mathematical way that she could win.
"I called Daniel Lurie earlier today to congratulate him and make it really clear that my team and I stand ready to support him during his transition," Breed said.
VIDEO: SF Mayor London Breed gives concession speech for mayoral race
Unofficial results in the 14th round of ranked choice voting released Thursday showed Lurie with 27.85% of first-choice votes and Breed with 24.54%.
Lurie was the only top candidate from outside San Francisco politics, never holding a position in local government.
"We knew this would not be easy," Lurie said in a speech at his election party Tuesday night. "The last time someone from outside of city government became the mayor of San Francisco was 1911. It was five years after the earthquake and it was an inflection point. And here we are, more than a century later and our city finds itself at another inflection point."
The race was crowded with candidates vying to unseat incumbent Breed. Besides Breed and Lurie, the top contenders were former supervisor and former interim mayor Mark Farrell, District 5 Supervisor and Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin, and District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safai.
Lurie earlier Thursday released a statement and plans for an announcement Friday morning.
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"I'm deeply grateful to my incredible family, campaign team and every San Franciscan who voted for accountability, service, and change. No matter who you supported in this election, we stand united in the fight for San Francisco's future and a safer and more affordable city for all," Lurie said in the statement.
As to why voters opted for Lurie over Breed, here's ABC7 News insider Phil Matier.
"In this race, it wasn't so much the direction the city is on now, but who could get us to where we want to go the fastest and they picked Daniel Lurie. He's got to make it clean and he's got to make it safe," Matier said.
Mayor Breed defended her record on crime during this speech saying that San Francisco currently has one of it's lowest crime rates in more than a decade.
That said, images of retail thefts in San Francisco were commonly seen at one point under Breed's leadership, along with car break-ins, and store closures in tourist areas like Union Square and Fisherman's Wharf. Issues that are being addressed but do still plague the City by the Bay. Our data team says crime is at one of the lowest rates in the past decade, but in several crime categories we saw lower numbers in 2020 and in pre-pandemic years.
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Thursday though, Breed wouldn't speculate on why she didn't win.
"I would say the campaign has to be behind us and we need to move forward as a city. We can't look backwards. The voters of San Francisco have made their decision and I as a mayor of San Francisco have always respected the voters and honored the decisions they made," Mayor Breed said.
Mayor Breed says she will continue to move San Francisco forward during her final two months in office.
Bay City News contributed to this report.
