Democratic mayors in San Francisco and Oakland are fighting to keep their jobs on Election Day

SAN FRANCISCO — Voters are deciding whether to re-elect San Francisco Mayor London Breed — the first Black woman in the role — or choose one of her four challengers in an expensive and competitive race heated over homelessness and public safety.

All challengers are fellow Democrats, who say Breed has wasted her six years in office homeless tent campsoutdoor drug use and brazen shoplifting have increased.

Crime and homelessness also left neighborhood residents frustrated Oakland to gather enough signatures to place Mayor Sheng Thao’s recall on Tuesday’s vote. They blame Thao, who came to power just two years ago, for a long list of problems in the city. California Governor Gavin Newsom has sent police officers onto the state’s highways, prosecutorsAnd surveillance cameras to help Oakland fight crime.

Thao became the first Hmong American mayor of a major U.S. city after she was elected in November 2022. Oakland has a population of about 400,000 and is sometimes more politically liberal than San Francisco. Democrat Kamala Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney, claims Oakland as her birthplace.

Supporters of the recall say the mayor has, in part, “created a public safety crisis.” to shoot popular Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong. Her memory is financed largely by investor Philip Dreyfuss, who did not respond to requests for comment. The local NAACP supports the recall.

Thao also heads out Tuesday with an FBI investigation hanging over her head after authorities in June raided her home and other properties owned by a politically influential family that controls the city’s recycling contract. Thao has persisted her innocence and authorities have not said what they are investigating.

“This government has inherited many challenges. However, we met them directly and implemented the solutions, and the data shows we are on the right track,” Thao said in a statement released by her supporters in October.

The contests take place a year before the presidential election, amid a national debate over public safety and a statewide vote a proposal to tackle crime that, if approved, would reclassify some misdemeanor thefts and drug crimes as felonies.

The streets of San Francisco have become cleaner and more homeless tents are much harder to findonly one daytime recordings in September of San Francisco 49ers rookie Ricky Pearsall in a popular central shopping area reignited the issue of safety in the city.

Breed, who was raised in San Francisco’s public housing by her grandmother, says the pandemic has tested the city, but her administration has laid the foundation for recovery. In the March primary, she favored a few successful votes on public safety measures to expand police powers and force some people into drug treatment.

“We have the tools, we have the technology, we have the support,” she said. “So we are not going back. It only gets better.”

Breed’s main competitors include Daniel Lurie, a wealthy philanthropist and nonprofit founder who has poured nearly $9 million of his own money into the race.

Lurie leads inside fundraising with more than $16 million raised – including $1 million from his mother, businesswoman Miriam Haas, to an outside committee that supported his candidacy.

Mark Farrell, a former interim mayor and venture capitalist, the most conservative of the group, has raised about $5 million.

Breed has raised more than $5 million, including $1.4 million from former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

More liberal Democrats Aaron Peskin and Ahsha Safaí, both of whom serve on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, are also on the ballot.

San Francisco elects its mayor using a ranked choice voting system which allows voters to list up to 10 candidates in order of preference. It could produce a winner who didn’t get the most first-place votes and it could also encourage unusual alliances between rival candidates, such as that between Farrell and Safaí, who have agreed to ask their supporters to make the other No. 2 . choose.

Breed won the election as mayor in June 2018 to serve out the remainder of Lee’s term. She was re-elected in 2019 to a full term that lasted five years instead of the usual four, after voters adjusted the electoral calendar to the presidential elections.