Tag Archives: Mayors race

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Let the games begin: 100 percent of the vote has been counted in SF, and Ed Lee needs 19 percent more of Ranked Choice ballots to win

Interim Mayor Ed Lee finished the count of first choice ballots with 44, 451 votes or 31.38 percent.

John Avalos was next with 26,447 votes, or 18.67 percent.

 Dennis Herrera was third with 15,967 or 11.27 percent.

David Chiu was fourth with  12,655 votes, 8.93 percent.

Only these three have an outside chance of catching Lee who needs 50 percent plus 1.

He better hope he was nice to supporters of the 5th through 10th finishers.

They are:

Leland Yee with 10,595 votes  or 7.48 percent.                                                                  

Jeff Adachi, 9,075 votes, or 6.41 percent.

Bevan Dufty, 6704 votes, or 4.73 percent.

Tony Hall, 5,164 votes, or 3.65 percent.

Michela Alioto Pier, 5,063 votes, or 3.57 percent

Joanna Rees, 2,280 votes, or 1.61 percent

These candidates  carry the bulk of the also-ran vote. As they get eliminated, their 2nd and 3rd choice ballots get distributed to whomever is designated.

If Ed Lee gets just  19 percent more of those votes he wins and makes history as the city’s first elected Asian American mayor.

This is where the last minute mudslinging might make a difference. Lee got his first place votes, but did all the news of voter fraud and campaign impropriety get him knocked off other candidates’ No.2 or No.3 ballots?

If it did, the trend of the shrinking Ed Lee lead could continue as Avalos, Herrera and possibly Chiu pick up 2nd choice votes.

If  no one has a majority, then the registrar starts counting the third choice votes.

Is this really worth not having another election between the top two candidates?

While the elections office listed an 11:30on  release of results, it looks as if the new results from the ranked choice balots will be at 4pm on Wednesday.

By then, Lee could have 50 percent plus 1, or not. If he didn’t get enough people to make him their No.2 choice, this could be a long and frustrating count lasting until Friday.

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San Francisco Mayor’s race: David Chiu’s candidacy no surprise; he’s readymade for Rank Choice Voting

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I’m not surprised that David Chiu, despite the short resume, has announced his run  for mayor of San Francisco.

I’ve called David Obamaesque in the past. He may not be a rock star yet. But I know he’s Ivy smart and ambitious and likes to work both sides of the street.  That said, his opportunity is really defined by the new rules of the game.

Democracy has become more horse race than ever with Rank Choice voting.

Now it’s like picking a trifecta at Golden Gate Fields,  creating  totally new strategies  for winning. 

Throw mud? Not anymore. Now it’s  time to cozy up and go tandem.  By trading 2nd and 3rd votes, in a non-majority race, an underdog can rise to the top and even win.

It seems like you’d want to be No.1 with your base. But if you can also be No.2 or No.3 with others in alliance, you end up campaigning at others’ events for the subvotes.  It happened to Oakland’s Jean Quan, the first Asian American woman mayor last year.

Running against the big Democratic political operative Don Perata, Quan actually lost the first round of voting by 11 percentage points.

But with no majority, the second ballots were counted. Quan who campaigned with the third place candidate Rebecca Kaplan, surged ahead of Perata simply by being named on more votes as No.2.

The new rules rule. Perata the pernniel Big Dog machine politician was out. Quan, the city councilwoman was in.

The Quan blueprint will be the Chiu strategy across the Bay in San Francisco. And I thought it was the waxed eyebrows.

For Asian Americans in San Francisco, the list now includes David Chiu and two other Asian American candidates: State Senator Leland Yee and City Assessor Phil Ting.  (Interim Mayor Ed Lee may still announce a run as the incumbent, but he  may be odd man out).

It used to be that one Asian American would split the vote. But with rank choice, you want lots of candidates to create a for sure non-majority. And then you want it to go to the 2nd and 3rd ballot. A free-for-all? Could be. Unless strategists are thinking about the new rules.

So the question will be who teams up with whom?

 Will there be an all-Asian 1-2-3? (Unlikely).

Or will there be an effort to leave any Asian Ameican off the top 3?

Hey, politics is interesting again. The big money can’t control it any longer. But that doesn’t mean someone won’t be out there trying to manipulate things with the new election math.

With new rules come new deal making.  Expect to see it in November.