Daniel Lurie Is San Francisco’s Next Mayor. What Will That Actually Look Like?

In his first public appearance as mayor-elect of San Francisco, philanthropist Daniel Lurie promised to bring more accountability to City Hall and said he’s searching for the people he will tap to lead his administration.

Lurie’s victory marked a significant shift for San Francisco, which hadn’t elected a mayor without government experience in nearly a century. It lays bare voters’ desire for change in City Hall — but exactly what will be different remains to be seen.

“Your call for accountable leadership, service and change have been heard,” Lurie told a group of reporters and supporters on Friday morning after Mayor London Breed conceded the night before. “I entered this race not as a politician but as a dad who couldn’t explain to my kids what they were seeing in our streets. In our house, when you love something as much as we love San Francisco, you fight for it.”

Lurie offered few specifics on his plans for leading the city amid a series of major challenges, including a significant budget deficit, a housing affordability crisis and an incoming presidential administration that’s likely to be hostile to San Francisco.

A nonprofit founder and heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, Lurie ran a steady campaign against what he often called “City Hall insiders” he blamed for problems in areas like homelessness and public safety.

The message appeared to resonate with voters. He won about 56% of votes after ranked-choice tallies, compared to Breed’s 44%.

But for all of Lurie’s campaigning on an “outsider” platform, it wasn’t his lack of government experience that voters were attracted to, said James Taylor, a professor and political scientist at the University of San Francisco. Rather, he said, Lurie rose to the top after his opponents failed to grasp the electorate.

“Daniel Lurie was the last guy at the party. There was nobody else to dance with,” Taylor said. “London Breed lost because people did not feel good under her leadership, not because she was wrong on policies.”

In fact, many of Lurie’s policies and approaches to solving priority issues such as homelessness, housing production and public safety aligned with Breed, a fellow moderate Democrat. That includes increasing shelter capacity to enforce sit-lie laws, boosting staffing at the police department, and increasing housing production at all income levels.

But to do any of that, he’ll have to work with a Board of Supervisors and the city’s winding bureaucracy.

“Lurie is going to experience a very rude awakening,” Taylor said. “The bureaucracy of San Francisco is so layered, and even though the city has a strong mayor arrangement, it takes personality and relationships. Bureaucrats who have been around for 30 years can survive mayoral changes — and that’s the element that I think Lurie is going to deal with.”

Lurie also ran the most expensive campaign in the city’s history, totaling nearly $16 million — almost $9 million of which came from his own inherited wealth. His record-breaking financing helped distribute his message widely in mailers, TV commercials and social media ads.

Breed and other opponents attacked Lurie for his lack of experience and ability to self-finance his campaign.

“It has been really one of the most sad and horrible things I’ve seen in politics in San Francisco, that someone would take their wealth and just basically buy this office,” Breed told reporters at her election night party on Tuesday. “It’s really unfortunate and pretty disgusting.”

Lurie said he does not anticipate taking the mayor’s salary and told reporters on Friday that he will put his assets into a trust upon entering office.

Come January, Lurie will face the real test, including balancing a nearly $800 million budget deficit and building tens of thousands of state-mandated housing units.

The mayor-elect said he plans to sit down one-on-one with department heads in the coming weeks while he’s also building his administration.

“The people in my administration are going to reflect the diversity of this great city,” he said, adding that he is looking both locally and globally at potential cabinet members. “We are going to have a world-class administration.”

When asked for details about how he plans to run the city as it likely faces new challenges under a second Trump administration, the mayor-elect said he would have San Franciscans’ backs. But he avoided sharing specifics on exactly how he plans to prepare for potential threats to San Francisco as a sanctuary city with a deep-blue electorate.

“Under my watch, San Francisco will stand up for the rights of all of our neighbors. We will never turn a blind eye to racism, bigotry, or anti-Asian hate,” he said. “I have serious disagreements with President Donald Trump, but I will never let those disagreements get in the way of the problems facing San Francisco.”