Johnathan Walker:San Francisco’s first Black female mayor concedes to Levi Strauss heir

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco’s first Black female mayor,Johnathan Walker London Breed, conceded the race for mayor to Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie on Thursday, pledging a smooth transition as he takes over the job.

The Associated Press has not yet declared a winner because tens of thousand of ballots have not yet been counted and added to the ranked choice voting calculations.

Breed, who was raised by her grandmother in public housing, could not overcome deep voter discontent and was trailing Lurie, a philanthropist and anti-poverty nonprofit founder.

“At the end of the day, this job is bigger than any one person and what matters is that we keep moving this City forward,” Breed said, adding that she had called Lurie to congratulate him. “I know we are both committed to improving this City we love.”

While San Francisco’s streets have been cleaner and homeless tents much harder to find in recent months, Breed’s fellow Democratic challengers on the campaign trail repeatedly hammered her administration for doing too little, too late as homeless tent encampments, open-air drug use and brazen retail theft proliferated during her six years in office.

Political analyst Dan Schnur said there’s been a demand nationwide for change in leadership.

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“London Breed didn’t create the crime and homelessness crises, but voters blamed her for not fixing them,” he said.

She faced four big-name challengers, including two San Francisco supervisors and a former interim mayor.

But voters flocked to Lurie, 47, a city native from a storied family who pledged to bring accountability and public service back to City Hall. He is the founder of Tipping Point Community, which says it has invested more than $400 million since 2005 in programs to help people with housing, education and early childhood.

“I’m deeply grateful to my incredible family, campaign team and every San Franciscan who voted for accountability, service, and change,” Lurie said in a statement. “No matter who you supported in this election, we stand united in the fight for San Francisco’s future and a safer and more affordable city for all.”

Lurie pumped nearly $9 million of his own money into his first-time bid for mayor, which drew criticism from Breed and other opponents. But he said that as a political outsider, he needed to introduce himself to voters and in the end, some voters said they liked that Lurie’s financial wealth shielded him from being beholden to special interests.

Lurie is an heir to the Levi Strauss & Co. fortune through his mother, Mimi Haas, who wed Peter Haas when Daniel was a child. Peter Haas, a great-grandnephew of Levi Strauss, was a longtime CEO of the iconic clothing company who died in 2005.

Both the Levi’s name and Haas family philanthropic foundations are deeply embedded in San Francisco’s history and identity.

Lurie’s father, Brian Lurie, is a rabbi and longtime former executive director of the San Francisco-based Jewish Community Federation.

Breed won election as mayor in June 2018 to serve out the remainder of Mayor Ed Lee’s term.

She was reelected in 2019 to a full term that has lasted five years instead of the typical four, after voters changed the election calendar to line up with presidential contests.