Thousands of votes are still outstanding and the results are not official yet, but figures released Wednesday evening show Olague's numbers remaining stagnant while Breed's continues to increase her lead, a lead political experts say will be hard to change.
Tuesday night, Breed celebrated as vote totals showed she is the newly-elected supervisor representing San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, Fillmore, and Western Addition neighborhoods. Breed was born and raised in the city and runs the African American Cultural Arts Complex. On Wednesday, she explained what she believes put her over the top in the eight-way race. "It's not just about being a native here, but actually doing a lot of work here. I spent a considerable amount of time dealing with public safety issues, job opportunities for people," she said.
But what also played a major factor was a move by incumbent Supervisor Christina Olague. Olague was appointed to the District 5 seat by Mayor Ed Lee in January when Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi was elected sheriff. When Mirkarimi was convicted of domestic violence, the mayor suspended him hoping to permanently toss him out of office. Olague was one of four supervisors and the only one in a hotly-contested election campaign who voted to reinstate Mirkarimi.
Anti-domestic violence advocates unleashed a last-minute ad campaign against her and now, they are taking credit for Olague's political demise. "It's just really a feeling of relief right now that voices were heard, that an injustice was corrected," said Andrea Shorter with San Francisco Women for Accountability.
Olague was not at her City Hall office Wednesday and she did not return calls from ABC7 News.
