With lead expanding, results show London dominated citywide voting

Breed wins on both Election Day and vote by mail, leads all candidates in 9 of 11 districts; election map shows Breed is ‘city’s first choice’

London-Breed-Phenomenal-Woman-300x202, With lead expanding, results show London dominated citywide voting, Local News & Views
London Breed – on a mission to restore San Francisco’s soul

by Tara Moriarty

San Francisco – As the San Francisco Department of Elections continued its meticulous count of outstanding ballots over the weekend, a critical ninth report on Sunday showed Board of Supervisors President London Breed widening her lead over Mark Leno in San Francisco’s mayoral race.

And with about 25,000 votes left to count from the historically high-turnout election, unofficial results reveal Breed’s dominance:

  • Breed was the first-place winner in nine of 11 supervisorial districts, including Districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10 and 11.
  • Breed beat Jane Kim by 13 points and Leno by 12 in Kim’s District 6. And Breed was only three points behind Leno in his former District 8, and only three behind Kim in District 9.
  • Breed beat Leno and Kim citywide by more than 11 and 13 points, respectively.
  • Breed beat Leno and Kim among voters casting ballots on Election Day.
  • Breed beat Leno and Kim among voters casting ballots by mail.

Elections has counted a total of 226,124 ballots. The department has about 25,000 ballots left to count.

After early returns on Election Night showed Breed winning first-place votes handily, late-night reports from Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) models gave Leno a slim lead, thanks to Jane Kim’s second-place votes. However, Leno’s lead continued to decrease each day thereafter – until Saturday when Breed overtook him.

Breed took the lead by 498 votes Saturday, and on Sunday her lead increased to 1,580 votes.

Breed is now leading in the count 103,388 votes, or 50.38 percent, to Leno’s 101,808 votes, or 49.62 percent.

Breed has always led with voters’ first-choice votes by a margin that only continues to increase. As of Sunday, her lead on first-place votes had expanded to better than 36 percent, compared to Leno’s 25 and Kim’s 23. She is now 11.6 percentage points ahead of Leno in first-choice votes, or 81,806 votes to Leno’s 55,867 votes.

The campaign was led by veteran campaign consultants Maggie Muir and Marjan Philhour.

Mayoral-Election-Map-Report-9-Precincts-Won-thru-061018-300x276, With lead expanding, results show London dominated citywide voting, Local News & Views “It’s clear that we ran a strong campaign citywide. We competed in every district, and we won almost all of them,” said Muir. “We ran a strong vote-by-mail effort. We ran a strong Get-Out-the-Vote effort. And, clearly, London Breed was the leading choice for mayor in neighborhoods all over the city – by a wide margin.”

A color-coded map of election results, based on the ninth Department of Elections report, shows Breed’s dominance in three-quarters of precincts across the city.

“The most important thing now is that every single vote must be counted,” said Philhour. “Debates about the Ranked Choice system can come later; this is the system we had going in, and it’s the system we have coming out. We are pleased to see RCV (Ranked Choice Voting) outcomes, first choice margins ​and​ citywide pluralities converging towards one clear leader, and that leader is London Breed.”

Whether Breed’s dominant showing will be enough to secure the win in RCV won’t be known until all the votes are counted.

Contact ​Tara Moriarty at ​tara@londonformayor.com.