San Francisco Ousted Its Lone Democratic Socialist City Supervisor

San Francisco’s rejection of woke politics wasn’t quite as dramatic as Oakland’s but it is still worth noting. In Oakland, voters chose to recall the city’s embattled mayor and county DA Pamela Price who ran on a promise of criminal justice reform. Apparently Oakland has had enough of that. Los Angeles County also voted to get rid of progressive DA George Gascon.

In San Francisco, the most progressive member of the city’s Board of Supervisors also got voted out. Dean Preston called himself a Democratic Socialist and he did everything he could to keep the city’s police from getting involved with the city’s homelessness and drug problems. Yesterday he conceded his loss but vowed to fight on.

With Bilal Mahmood’s lead widening over San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston, the incumbent has acknowledged his likely loss in the District 5 race.

In an Instagram post after the latest round of returns, the progressive lawmaker acknowledged defeat in what was the city’s most expensive supervisorial race this year.

“I’ve spent a lifetime fighting for underdogs, often against the odds,” Preston wrote. “I wouldn’t change a minute of it. We can’t win every battle, but we’ll continue the fight.”

There were five candidates in the race for this seat but Mahmood and Preston were the frontrunners. The most obvious divide between the two was their stance on the police.

Mahmood and Preston have long been the race’s frontrunners, with neighborhood groups and community leaders in the district throwing their support behind either Preston, who’d become the target for some of The City’s moderate interest groups, and Mahmood, a tech entrepreneur who some argued could bring in some much-needed change to the district.

Some of the criticisms levied against Preston have come from business owners in the Tenderloin over a lack of cooperation with the San Francisco Police Department and Mayor London Breed’s office over public-safety concerns. Preston has emphasized the use of community ambassadors, while Mahmood has been an outspoken advocate for increased police staffing and spending.

Preston was endorsed by Bernie Sanders but was widely disliked by the tech community in the city, especially by Elon Musk.

In response to an article about legislation proposed by Supervisor Dean Preston that would ban security guards from drawing firearms to protect property, Musk commented that the legislator “should go to prison.”

Preston, a Democratic Socialist, introduced the legislation after a security guard killed Banko Brown, a transgender man, after he allegedly tried to steal snacks from a San Francisco Walgreens.

Preston hit back at Musk in a Friday press release, calling him a “fascist” and touting his own record as a tenants’ rights attorney.

Musk once said he would donate $100,000 to a fund seeking to oust Preston but that apparently never happened.

In any case, the most far left person on the Board of Supervisors has now been replaced by a pro-police moderate. This wouldn’t be shocking in most parts of the country but in San Francisco this glimmer of common sense is cause to celebrate. The founder of GrowSF, which has been leading the charge among moderates in the city, posted this on X.

Two years ago we beat an incumbent Supervisor. This year we beat an incumbent Supervisor. No one should assume their seat is safe.

San Francisco is ready for change. https://t.co/IlsAcNyITM

— Sachin Agarwal (@agarwal) November 11, 2024

If you step back from San Francisco for a moment, I think you see the same pattern happening everywhere this election. People on the right and the left are rejecting the wokeism that has been lingering for a decade and which became a real political force in 2020. The results of the woke agenda are in and they are not good. Sensible people on both sides of the aisle are saying they’ve had enough. We’ll have to wait and see if the Democratic Party can learn anything from this or if they’ll decided to double down on stupid.