San Francisco may shift its mayoral elections to line up with presidential races. Is that good for progressives or moderates? – San Francisco…
Mayor London Breed has come out against a San Francisco ballot measure that would change the timing of mayoral elections, saying it would help the progressives whove put it on the ballot and needs more public input before it goes to voters.
But a Chronicle analysis of San Francisco election data found that while the measure would probably boost overall voter turnout, areas that are more moderate and therefore more likely to back Breed could actually see the biggest increases. Moreover, neighborhoods with higher support for Breed in her most competitive election in 2018 may have larger increases in turnout.
In the upcoming Nov. 8 election, voters will face Measure H, which its backers say is an effort to boost turnout by moving mayoral elections, currently held in odd-numbered years, to coincide with presidential elections in even-numbered ones.
Supporters of the proposition call it a crucial voting rights measure that aligns with the citys progressive policies. Leading the group is Supervisor Dean Preston, who proposed the measure and is considered the citys most progressive supervisor, according to a previous Chronicle analysis of roll call votes.
Breed opposes the initiative, saying a robust public input process is needed before putting it on the ballot. Breed went even further on KCBS Radio. telling the station that the measure was being pushed by Preston and a group of democratic socialists who want to have more control and power of being able to get more of their people elected. Breed is generally considered a moderate among San Francisco politicians.
The city currently has three major elections presidential, gubernatorial and mayoral that operate on different four-year cycles. Mayoral elections, which include contests for other city officials like district attorney, city attorney and sheriff, happen in November of odd-numbered years. The next one is scheduled for 2023 or 2024 if the measure passes in November. Gubernatorial races coincide with federal midterm elections, which happen two years after every presidential election; the next gubernatorial election is coming up in November. Between these major elections are municipal races for other local offices and special elections, like recalls and runoffs.
S.F. voter turnout is typically highest in presidential elections. Since 1995, average turnout in presidential races was 75%, compared with 59% for governor and 44% for mayoral and primary elections. Other special races have even fewer voters, with an average of just 30%.
Results from the most recent elections show the greatest differences between mayoral and presidential turnout. While 42% of San Francisco voters cast ballots in the 2019 mayoral election, 86% did in the 2020 presidential race.
The gap, however, is probably narrower, as some voters leave questions regarding local races blank on presidential ballots. In 2020, an average of 37,000 voters left the 13 city propositions unmarked, bringing the actual voting rate on local races down to 79%.
Still, the difference in turnout from 2019 to 2020 is almost 40 percentage points, and moving mayoral elections to the presidential cycle could nearly double voter turnout.
After Los Angeles moved local races from odd years to even years, it found a significant boost in turnout across the city. According to research from California Common Cause, the city saw four times more ballots cast in city races in 2020 compared with the previous local race in 2015.
To understand the political implications of this change, The Chronicle compared neighborhood-level turnout with the progressivity of each area. To do this, we used the Progressive Voter Index (PVI), which uses an areas voting history on different ballot measures to score it from most to least progressive by San Francisco standards. Each area gets a score ranging from 0 to 100, with a higher score indicating more progressive voting records.
We found that neighborhoods with low PVI scores (i.e. less progressive voting behavior) are more likely than high-PVI areas to have higher turnout in presidential than mayoral elections.
Take, for instance, the Marina and Pacific Heights area, which has a relatively low PVI of 42. In the last two mayoral elections, the average turnout there was 40%, compared to 89% in the previous two presidential elections. Thats a 49-percentage-point difference, the largest gap among 26 San Francisco neighborhoods, as defined by the San Francisco Department of Elections.
In contrast, the north Bernal Heights area the highest-PVI-scoring neighborhood, at 91 saw a 36-percentage-point difference in turnout between the most recent presidential and mayoral elections.
Moreover, the population in low-PVI neighborhoods is much larger than in high-PVI areas. In other words, switching the timing of mayoral races in which the dynamics between progressives and moderates are more pronounced could shift the progressivity of the electorate more to the right than in past municipal elections.
Its important to note that we dont know whether the progressivity of this group of voters those who vote in presidential but not mayoral elections reflects the PVI of their neighborhood. Its possible that they hold significantly different viewpoints from those in the area who regularly voted in past elections.
According to Supervisor Preston, the measure is not meant to favor one side over the other. Nonpartisan groups, like California Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus, led the initiative to gather support for the measure.
Its not about picking winners, its about making sure the most San Franciscans have a meaningful voice in choosing the citys most powerful elected leaders. Its about strengthening our local Democracy, Preston wrote in an email to The Chronicle.
The measure, in fact, received support from supervisors who typically disagree politically. Among the seven supervisors who voted to put the measure on the ballot were Supervisor Catherine Stefani, Ahsha Safa and Myrna Melgar, who are among the least progressive board members and typically do not vote in agreement with Preston on contentious issues.
According to political strategist Ruth Bernstein from EMC Research Inc., we can expect other changes in voter demographics. Compared to low-turnout elections, voters in high-turnout races tend to be younger, more diverse and generally look more like the overall city demographic.
When you have 80 to 85% turnout, its going to look like the full demographic of the voting population or community, Bernstein said.
What might the scheduling change mean specifically for Breed and her reelection chances in 2024? We compared the turnout difference from recent elections with results from Breeds 2018 win over Mark Leno and Jane Kim. The citywide results from ranked-choice voting show over a third of voters chose Breed as their first choice, compared to 24% each for Leno and Kim.
The neighborhood-level data shows that areas with more first-choice votes for Breed in 2018 are associated with greater increases in turnout between presidential and mayoral elections.
When the ballot measure was introduced to the Board of Supervisors, Mayor Breed voiced objections, saying not enough public opinion had been gathered to understand the effects of the change. She pointed to the public input process that Los Angeles and San Jose two cities that made similar election changes went through to gather feedback about how to improve turnout before putting something on the ballot.
A poll from David Binder Research found that 43% of likely voters would vote in favor of the measure, while 15% were against it and 41% were undecided. The poll surveyed 600 likely Nov. 2022 voters in San Francisco from May 31 to June 5, 2022.
The supervisors who opposed putting the measure on the ballot voiced concerns around reducing the number of elections and the specific timing of Prestons proposal. When asked about other potentially negative effects, Bernstein said it may be harder for local candidates to get their messaging across to voters because of the many federal and statewide ballot items, which typically get more attention. This is evident when looking at the campaign finance totals going to statewide propositions compared to city measures in the upcoming November election.
When you vote in presidential elections, there are a lot of things on the ballot, like the presidential race, statewide measures and other offices, Bernstein said. It can be harder for local candidates to break through in communications because theres a lot more going on.
Nami Sumida (she/her) is a San Francisco Chronicle data visualization developer. Email: nami.sumida@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @namisumida
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San Francisco may shift its mayoral elections to line up with presidential races. Is that good for progressives or moderates? - San Francisco...