The Candidates

San Francisco Board of Supervisors

District 2

In Short: 

District 2 is home to San Francisco’s wealthiest enclaves, and its Supervisorial seat has launched some of the City’s most notable political careers, from Gavin Newsom to Dianne Feinstein. Historically this seat has been one of the most conservative on the Board, held for over 25 years by some of the City’s most conservative Democrats. The D2 supervisor represents some of the wealthiest, most powerful people on the planet. With such a powerful constituency and a rich history of moderate supervisors rising to prominence within the Democratic Party, the District 2 race is always one to watch.  The race therefore offers a clear local example of the political and economic power that Economic Democracy seeks to challenge: DSA’s program calls for democratic control over economic power rather than allowing wealthy individuals, investors, and corporations to exercise outsized influence over public policy.

District 2’s race is still technically on the ballot, but the real contest ended after the  June election, when Lori Brooke dropped out after a decisive loss to Stephen Sherrill who outraised her two to one. Brooke represented a business-friendly, homeowner-aligned politics that would once have been a natural fit for this district.

Sherrill won the primary by fusing that old-money, big business tradition with a new coalition of big tech and big money YIMBY-bankrollers, reflecting the configuration currently in power at City Hall. Old money has united with big tech to form a new conservative coalition, one that pairs market deregulation with an embrace of the Police State, making Ending Mass Incarceration and Police Immunity an important part of the fight in this district. This race is also directly related to DSA’s Housing For All plank; rather than treating housing as a human right and expanding publicly owned social housing and protections for renters, the candidates rely on private development and market forces to determine who gets to live in Francisco. 

Stephen Sherrill

The incumbent deeply entrenched in establishment, anti-working class politics for decades.

Stephen Sherrill was a Republican until 2009 and first registered as a Democrat in 2023 and has been welcomed into the “moderate” Democratic fold. He is a second-generation private equity guy who graduated from Yale, interned in George W. Bush’s White House, and worked in Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration in New York. 

After working in the Bloomberg-funded Mayor’s Office of Innovation during Mayor London Breed’s tenure, Sherrill’s appointment to the District 2 Supervisor seat was a surprise pick. It has since become the subject of a federal corruption investigation and it is widely believed that Breed tapped Sherrill as part of a quid pro quo agreement with Michael Bloomberg. This hasn’t hurt Sherrill’s political prospects. He is a close ally of Mayor Lurie, whose Office of Innovation received a $7 million grant from Michael Bloomberg in December 2025. 

Sherrill is backed by the YIMBY/Abundance coalition, earning the endorsement of GrowSF and a substantial personal donation from its founder, Garry Tan. Sherrill’s opposition to a high-rise housing development at the site of the Marina Safeway hasn’t jeopardized his support from YIMBY groups, however.

Nicholas Berg

The Republican candidate dedicated to slashing the critical government services working San Franciscans rely on.

Nicholas Berg is the San Francisco Republican Party’s choice for District 2. His main policy positions include championing charter schools at the expense of public schooling, slashing critical government services, and ending ‘Housing First’ policies. These represent the core tenets of conservative politics in the city: unlimited cruelty towards the working class in order to benefit rich capitalists. Nicholas Berg would be a disaster for the people of District 2.

Excluded:

Guy McCoy
Monthanus Ratanapakdee

District 4

In short:

Joel Engardio was the Sunset’s representative until he was recalled in the fall of 2025 – an ironic twist given Engardio’s instrumental role in earlier recalls of several Board of Education members and progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin. During his brief stint in office, Engardio led the effort to close part of the Great Highway and turn it into a coastal park now known as the Sunset Dunes. He placed this proposal on the November 2024 ballot, where it passed with a citywide majority despite most of District 4 voting against it. Ten months later, Engardio’s tenure succumbed to the anger of his constituents over this decision. Engardio made this decision with a remarkable lack of transparency. During the recall campaign, it was revealed that Engardio had deleted a May 2024 meeting with park advocates from his private calendar, concealing it from public view. The Sunshine Task Force unanimously condemned him for this violation.

The debate over the Great Highway continues to be a flashpoint in the district and a proxy for multiple interconnected concerns around climate and environmental protections, public transit, community input in City planning, and the ubiquitous issue of affordability. These questions relate to the Green New Deal, which calls for a worker-led transition to sustainable infrastructure and major public investment in transit, as well as Democracy For All, which emphasizes protecting people’s ability to meaningfully participate in decisions that affect their communities.

Mayor Lurie’s first appointee to fill Engardio’s seat, Beya Alcaraz, was in office for only a week before her career succumbed to allegations surrounding the pet shop she formerly owned. Revelations of tax avoidance and labor violations, along with dozens of dead pets in freezers, forced her to resign. Lurie’s second pick has had a longer tenure: Alan Wong took office in December and then won a special election in June. He’s one of the staunchest allies of the Mayor on a Board packed with them and is considered one of the Board’s most conservative members. 

The second-place finisher in the June special election, Natalie Gee, had significant labor and progressive support. After Wong’s definitive victory, Gee decided not to run again and labor has not backed any of the remaining candidates, narrowing the field to Albert Chow, Jeremy Greco, and the incumbent Wong. 

There is currently no DSA backed candidate seeking election in District 4, but the district deserves a candidate who prioritizes an affordability agenda for residents of the Sunset District, celebrates the cultural diversity of the district, fights speculative luxury housing development, fights for important environmental protections, and works with local constituents to make sure that they are included in city decision making.

Albert Chow

A critic of Mayor Lurie with a focus on neighborhood-level control but also concerning connections to real estate and conservative organizations.

Albert Chow is a hardware store owner and longtime neighborhood club president who came in third place in June’s special election. His campaign gives voice to Sunset residents whose top priority is preserving neighborhood-level influence in planning decisions. 

Chow opposed last year’s Family Zoning Plan, Mayor Lurie’s citywide upzoning initiative, criticizing the lack of community input on a plan that could bring buy-outs, displacement, and luxury development to the Sunset. Chow’s skepticism of top-down mandates also underpins his support of Proposition G, which would reopen the Great Highway to car traffic. 

Chow has also campaigned on public safety and a stronger police presence in the Sunset, a position that is likely driven by the coalition he’s fostered, which blends new and old conservative institutions. His candidacy has been endorsed by the Chinese American Democratic Club, Connected SF, and the San Francisco Association of Realtors. Although Chow states that his primary concern is preserving community governance, his platform and campaign has the backing of real estate interests and conservative organizations.

Jeremy Greco

A working class candidate backed by some progressive organizations but lacking a robust campaign.

Jeremy Greco, a teacher and actor, came in fourth in the June special election and is a new face in the San Francisco political scene. He’s the sole working-class candidate in the race, having spent 16 years as a worker-owner at a local cooperative. Greco has endorsed DSA SF’s Proposition B, to establish a Public Bank, and Proposition I, which will secure key funding for affordable and social housing. His platform also includes progressive policies like support for affordable and social housing, investment in preventative solutions to public safety, and expanded Muni service. Citing environmental concerns, he supports keeping Sunset Dunes Park open while strengthening coastline protections.

His platform deserves consideration, but he is not viewed as a viable contender in the race. Despite his progressive platform, his campaign has not generated significant labor support, even after labor-supported candidate Natalie Gee dropped out in June and subsequently endorsed him. 

Greco is endorsed by the Harvey Milk LGBTQ+ Democratic Club, the San Francisco Tenants Union, and former District 4 Supervisor Gordon Mar, but he has little institutional backing and has only raised about $6,000, all from small-dollar individual donors.

Alan Wong

An unwavering ally of Mayor Lurie who abandoned former progressive positions to attain power and the backing of big money.

Alan Wong is the incumbent supervisor and is running for his first full term after being appointed by Daniel Lurie in December 2025 and winning the June special election to serve out the remainder of ousted Supervisor Joel Engardio’s term. 

You may remember Alan Wong from his campaigns for City College Board of Trustees, where he ran as a strong progressive candidate with the backing of AFT 2121 (the City College faculty union) and a broad coalition of progressive support. 

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Alan Wong was a different politician from the Supervisor now campaigning against Proposition B (DSA SF’s endorsed effort to establish a Public Bank) and serving as one of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s closest allies on the Board. But the warning signs were there. Wong had already built a record around public safety and policing, including co-founding Stop Crime SF, a group that advocates for increased police resources. 

Political opportunist is the perfect term for Supervisor Wong, who now campaigns as Mayor Lurie’s “partner” on the Board and has the backing of the Lurie coalition’s massive campaign war chest. During his June special election against progressive Natalie Gee, Wong received nearly $1 million from PACs tied to Lurie and his billionaire allies. 

During his time on the Board, Wong has consistently voted with the conservative wing of the Board, even co-sponsoring Matt Dorsey’s abstinence-only permanent supportive housing bill, which would evict some of the City’s poorest residents onto the streets if they use drugs in their homes.

In addition, Wong’s vote against placing the DSA SF endorsed Proposition B on the ballot has aligned him with ConnectedSF, a conservative political group led by former Republican Marie Hurabiell, whose transphobia is so egregious even her ally Daniel Lurie had to condemn her tweets. Wong shared the stage with Hurabiell recently at a rally organized as a counter protest to our Public Bank campaign launch, held just around the block. 

Wong’s vision for the City is indistinguishable from that of Mayor Lurie: increasing funding for SFPD, deregulation of real estate, and offering vague statements of support for LGBTQ and immigrant communities while cutting their safety net funding.

District 6

In Short:

Incumbent Matt Dorsey will likely win reelection, but we would be remiss not to weigh in on his odious stances. Dorsey represents a district with some of the city’s most reactionary pockets, particularly among SoMa residents whose politics have been shaped by increased poverty and homelessness in their neighborhood.

The combination of the 2022 redistricting, which removed the Tenderloin neighborhood from District 6, ongoing luxury development and the high concentration of corporate tech offices has further shifted the political makeup of the district to the right. D6 was formerly represented by Jane Kim, a staunch progressive notwithstanding her support for the infamous Twitter Tax break. The Supervisor before Dorsey, Matt Haney, was elected as a progressive in 2018, but pivoted to the center to embrace pro-developer politics as he used the seat as a launchpad for State Assembly. 

Supervisor Dorsey is one of the right-most Board members, espousing a carceral, pro-corporate, and overtly Zionist politics that obsessively demonizes the left. But we should not assume that Dorsey carries unanimous support from his own neighborhood. Many of the same neighbors now demanding more policing and arrests of people who use drugs once formed an unlikely alliance with prison abolitionists and leftists in 2018 to successfully oppose the construction of a new jail in the district. 

Dorsey’s embrace of a new War on Drugs is directly in opposition to DSA’s values of Ending Mass Incarceration and Police Immunity, we fight for demilitarizing police, redirecting resources toward public services, treating addiction and mental illness as health issues rather than crimes, and moving toward the abolition of the capitalist carceral system. Our opposition to Supervisor Dorsey is also rooted in our platform tenets: Free Palestine and End The U.S. War Machine, as Dorsey has used his political platform to defend US support for Israel’s brutal genocide in Gaza.

Today, these very neighbors could again form a big tent around opposition to the RESET Center, a detention facility for people suspected of being intoxicated or under the influence. The model is a reboot of the “drunk tank,” where people are held until they are deemed sober and risk re-arrest if they try to leave before then. San Francisco abandoned this model more than 75 years ago because it was ineffective and dangerous, with many people dying in custody. Today, that same model is being lauded by the Mayor and the Board as an innovative new approach, and Supervisor Dorsey considers it the “most important drug policy development since the advent of fentanyl here in San Francisco”.

Growing pushback is emerging, from people who could be directly impacted by the Center, to neighbors who view it as an attempt to skirt existing restrictions and effectively create a new jail in their neighborhood. That fight gives Healthcare For All and End Mass Incarceration and Police Immunity a concrete expression in D6: whether people struggling with addiction are met with healthcare, housing, and harm-reduction services, or with detention and arrest. 

These disparate groups have a common aim today, just as they did in 2018. There are deep reactionary currents in the neighborhood, but they are being harnessed by big money political forces and turned against their poorer neighbors and their neighbors in supportive housing. Dorsey thrives by pitting these groups against each other, turning neighbors who could otherwise find common ground into opponents. However, grassroots organizing to stop the ineffective and cruel RESET Center might see a larger pushback of the conservative politics Dorsey espouses and the start of a better era for District 6.

Matt Dorsey

The anti-DSA, pro-Zionist incumbent hellbent on imposing cruelty against our neighbors struggling with addiction.

Matt Dorsey is the incumbent supervisor in District 6. Mayor London Breed appointed him to the seat in May 2022 after Matt Haney was elected to State Assembly. Before entering elected office, Dorsey served as Head of Communications for the San Francisco Police Department and worked as a lobbyist for Lyft and Veritas, a major corporate landlord.

Since taking office, Dorsey has established himself as the one of the rightmost figures on the Board. He earned an F in our 2025 Report Card and has been a consistent ally of Mayor Lurie’s mass-arrest, mass-jailing agenda. But Dorsey’s carceral approach predates Lurie. In 2022, he proposed a plan for the city to make at least 100 arrests per night of people who use drugs.

Dorsey has been in recovery from addiction and is an openly gay man living with HIV. He has used that lived experience to embrace a “Recovery First” approach that prioritizes abstinence from substances as a prerequisite for access to housing and other harm-reductive services. His position aligns him with organizations like the Salvation Army, the right-wing Cicero Institute and Drug Free Sidewalks SF that have pushed back against “Housing First” models.

These groups advocate against syringe and safe supply access and other services rooted in harm reduction, and have helped push the City away from the statewide “Housing First” approach, an evidence-based framework which recognizes that people experiencing homelessness and struggling with addiction often cannot begin recovery without first having stable housing and their basic needs met. Dorsey earlier this year spearheaded legislation which barred the city from funding any new supportive housing that will not evict residents for using drugs. This demonstrates the cruel and counter-productive nature of his “Recovery First” agenda, which actively prevents people from accessing the housing they need.  

Matt Dorsey is also an ardent Zionist and proud supporter of Israel (see his favorite tweet opener “as a non-Jewish Zionist…”). In January 2024, he voted against DSA member and then Supervisor Dean Preston’s resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. This past Pride weekend, he took to Twitter/X to ask Elon Musk’s AI chatbot ‘Grok’ to elaborate on his justifications of the ongoing genocide including “@grok, which side in the Hamas-Israeli War is the most pro-LGBTQ+? 🇮🇱” and calling Palestinians “suicidally motivated civilians.” He also said that protestors wearing keffiyehs were cosplaying as “Jihadist terrorists who routinely torture and kill queers.” 

It is difficult to overstate how much Matt Dorsey hates DSA, calling us “politically repellent and anti-semitic” while calling on the Democratic party to crush the rise of socialism. His opposition to DSA is not incidental to his politics; it is core to his public identity and his reactionary platform. 

That is exactly why we cannot let his attacks define the terms of the fight. We need to keep organizing, keep building our power, and keep showing that the politics Dorsey wants to crush are the politics that will make reactionaries like him a bitter memory. He can keep attacking us. We will keep getting stronger.

Alex Behrend

A political outsider with strong values but lacking the organizational support to win the race.

Alex Behrend was a latecomer to the District 6 Supervisor race and is Matt Dorsey’s sole challenger. Behrend presents a bold, working class-forward vision for the city: he is one of the few candidates on the San Francisco ballot to support divesting from Israel and industries involved with apartheid and genocide against the Palestinian people, he wants to protect worker rights by guaranteeing the right to legal counsel, and supports DSA SF’s endorsed Proposition I, which will secure key funding for affordable and social housing. His platform serves as a direct counter to Matt Dorsey’s conservatism, but his campaign lacks the momentum to truly take on the big money’s darling. His late entry and lack of key endorsements suggest a nonviable campaign, but perhaps an opportunity for a meaningful protest vote in a race considered to be already decided.

District 8

In Short: 

The Castro was once known as the progressive stronghold that launched Harvey Milk, Harry Britt (the first Democratic Socialist elected in SF), and generations of progressive queer leaders. Over the years, due to gentrification and rising housing costs, the district’s voter base has shifted right, leading to the supervisorial terms of prominent moderates Scott Wiener and Rafael Mandelman. Mayor Lurie has partnered with Supervisor Mandelman to ride a wave of moderate momentum in San Francisco, but as a working class affordability crisis drives socialist electoral wins across the country, this race has also demonstrated a shifting Overton window in the city’s “swing” district, with three progressive candidates on one side and one lone “moderate” on the other, before the moderate pick dropped out. District 8 is a battleground over Housing For All: rising housing costs and gentrification have reshaped the district, while candidates increasingly recognize that affordability requires more than market-rate development and must include tenant protections, social housing, and public investment.

Even amid the big money takeover of our local government, District 8 candidates are scrambling to position themselves as representatives of the working class and promising to elevate progressive issues like public transit and housing affordability. Most of the candidates espouse YIMBY-aligned views on new housing development but there is a strong emphasis on tenant protections and publicly-funded solutions like a public bank and social housing. The District 8 race is a lesson in the contested boundary between “progressive” and “moderate” wings of the local Democratic Party. The race speaks directly to DSA’s demand for Economic Democracy. Debates over a public bank, social housing, and the influence of real estate and tech money all come down to a central question: who controls our resources and shapes our city, the public or private capital?

As one of two Supervisor elections without an incumbent this November, the D8 race is one of the most watched on the ballot. District 8, which includes the Castro, is a beacon for queer people all over the world. This year, it is clear that the fight for the intersectionality of queer struggles and class struggle is alive and well in the Castro and across District 8. Feminism For All is especially relevant for analyzing this race: DSA’s program connects queer liberation and bodily autonomy to the broader struggle for economic and social equality, rather than treating LGBTQ rights as separate from class struggle. 

Trigger warning for sexual assault. This race exists in the context of sexual violence and how the San Francisco political scene has failed survivors.

This race has also exposed just how unprepared and unwilling current Democratic Party institutions are to grapple with sexual violence perpetrated by its members and center survivors. In July, longtime progressive organizer Brad Chapin came forward with allegations that District 8 candidate Manny Yekutiel had sexually assaulted him at a party in 2020. The SFPD did not file charges against Yekutiel, but that is hardly surprising given that the department failed to solve 86% of rape cases in 2025.

The response to the allegations has been an embarrassing condemnation of San Francisco politics, a political scene that has been wrestling with sexual misconduct for years. In 2024, the SF Democratic Party made a big show of rewriting its Code of Conduct on Sexual Assault and Harassment as allegations against progressive-aligned organizers Jon Jacobo and Kevin Ortiz shook the political scene. In 2026, however, on the day of the SF Democratic Party’s endorsement vote in the District 8 race, its independent investigator revealed that they could not investigate the allegations against Yekutiel because the alleged incident did not take place at a Democratic Party event. Forget a survivor-centered justice process: the Democratic Party engaged in a backwards, nonsensical farce that allows politicos to openly pick who gets consequences and who doesn’t. They endorsed Yekutiel that same evening and he continued to lead in fundraising and win Mayor Lurie’s endorsement, before dropping out in early October after two more victims, Ryan Clark and his partner, came forward.

The process and the outcome demonstrates exactly why survivors face such hurdles to coming forward and represents the lack of integrity of the San Francisco Democratic Party as a whole, as well as the failure of chairperson Nancy Tung, that affects not just Brad Chapin and District 8, but every survivor who may come forward in the future. The moderate political establishment, from Nancy Tung to Daniel Lurie, has failed survivors. The District 8 race exists inextricably within this context, and healing cannot begin for survivors until that failure is addressed.

Emanuel “Manny” Yekutiel

The choice of big money moderates and establishment Democrats dropped out due to multiple allegations of sexual assault.

Manny Yekutiel is no longer running for office after the bravery of three survivors to come forward. Below is an analysis of the supporters he had and the agenda he was pursuing.

Manny announced his long-dreaded candidacy in September 2025, touting his political career and community events at the Mission District cafe bearing his name, Manny’s. Yekutiel has set the tone for the District 8 race, raising more money than his three opponents combined and shamelessly continuing his campaign despite credible accusations of sexual assault and the ensuing loss of high-profile endorsers. Manny has withstood years of community criticism over his business’s role in Valencia Street gentrification, his partnership with Mayor Lurie in their longtime efforts to privatize public arts and civic events, and his platforming of Zionists amid ongoing apartheid and genocide. Yekutiel is running on a platform of developing 10,000 housing units through a special use district on Market Street, cutting environmental and community review from the development process, and increasing staffing of the police department to crack down on crimes of poverty and substance use disorder. 

Yekutiel maintained his coalition for months despite sexual misconduct allegations. He remained fully backed and funded by GrowSF, Abundance Network, District 8 Supervisor and Board President Rafael Mandelman, and Mayor Daniel Lurie. They were spending big to support his campaign, and the San Francisco Democratic Party also endorsed him through a scandal-ridden process that unfolded even as the survivor, Brad Chapin, continued to fight for justice.

Manny has used his cafe as a front for a political campaign he has been planning for years. He even stepped down from the SFMTA Board when he considered running for mayor. This race is not about Manny. It’s about the innumerable failures of Democrats to protect and center survivors and the lack of accountability enjoyed by those with political connections and big money funding.

Gary McCoy

An experienced politician with an inspiring history of homelessness advocacy but an establishment view on most other issues.

Gary McCoy is an experienced political staffer who worked for Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, leading her “Save Our Health Care” initiative during the first Trump administration, to stop attacks on Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. McCoy has lived experience with homelessness and addiction and is an openly gay man living with HIV. His background has informed his advocacy and life’s work fighting for a healthcare system that guarantees free and high-quality healthcare for all. He also served as the Director of Public Affairs for HealthRIGHT 360, a major healthcare and substance use treatment nonprofit service provider in San Francisco, where he spearheaded the short-lived but life-saving Tenderloin Linkage Center, which operated in many ways like San Francisco’s first safe consumption site before former Mayor Breed shut it down. His experience positions him as a major champion of harm reduction on a Board of Supervisors that has increasingly been walking back these approaches.

On housing, McCoy’s experience with homelessness guides his advocacy for housing solutions while his legislative background gives those ideas practical grounding. He supports the DSA-endorsed Proposition I, which will secure key funding for affordable and social housing. He has also earned the number one endorsement of the SF YIMBYs over GrowSF’s choice, Yekutiel, in part because McCoy has publicly built bridges with YIMBYs for years and they see his policy experience as an asset in advancing housing policy.

He has the backing of labor and, in a rare show of unified support, endorsements from both the progressive Harvey Milk and moderate Alice B Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Clubs. His political background spans both community-based organizations as well as the Democratic Party, having worked for Scott Wiener and Nancy Pelosi. Although positioned as a strong progressive on some issues, his backing from moderates raises questions about how he would navigate a conservative Mayor and Board.

Michael T. Nguyen

A community organizer with a strong housing plan and a fearless opposition to Mayor Lurie.

Michael Ngyuen is a lawyer, community organizer, and 20-year renter in District 8 who has made affordability the central focus of his campaign. He proudly endorses DSA SF’s endorsed measure, Proposition I, which will secure key funding for affordable and social housing. He is also the only candidate in the race to oppose Mayor Lurie’s Family Zoning Plan, citing its lack of comprehensive tenant and small business protections. Michael has the most socialist-aligned housing platform compared to the other candidates, advocating for the preservation of rent-controlled units, land banking through community land trusts, and social housing.

His political experience includes serving on the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC), where he has frequently cast protest votes since the DCCC’s takeover by big money in March 2024. He is a member of the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, which selected him as its second choice behind McCoy, and a former chair of the GLBTQ+ Asian Pacific Alliance. Michael has also performed in drag under the name Juicy Liu since 2016, becoming a longtime part of District 8’s prominent drag scene.

Michael Nguyen’s background in community organizing, skepticism of the moderate-controlled City Hall, and focus on affordability set him apart from the current District 8 Supervisor Mandelman. He has to contend though with McCoy’s large base of support and Patel’s relatively well-resourced organizing operation.

Darshini Patel

A self-described socialist with a strong platform and an emphasis on problem solving. 

Darshini Patel is running as a progressive-aligned candidate for District 8 Supervisor. Her professional background includes 5 years working as a senior manager at DoorDash in between working for the Obama and Harris presidential campaigns. Darshini is the only candidate in the District 8 race to openly identify as a socialist. 

Like the other candidates in this race, her top policy priority is housing affordability, but she distinguishes herself by emphasizing the importance of reliable governance. As someone coming from outside the San Francisco political establishment, she brings a fresh perspective to the dysfunction of City Hall while also demonstrating a deep understanding of the issues facing the city. She has a sharp, analytical approach that cuts through the typical political noise and gets at the underlying problems of how our strong-Mayor city is actually governed. Her platform emphasizes that legislators are primarily responsible for building a government people can depend on and trust. 

At the time of writing, Darshini does not have a significant coalition of community organizations behind her, but her campaign is driven by small donations and supported through grassroots organizing within District 8. The lack of a driving coalition may limit her institutional support, but it also means she is not beholden to the priorities of supporting organizations or the interests they might expect her to cater to.

Darshini has publicly supported Proposition I, which will secure key funding for affordable and social housing. Her policy platform supports building housing of all types, not just market-rate housing, while pursuing innovative solutions to the crisis, including DSA SF’s Proposition B to create a public bank that could spur housing development through low-cost public capital. We cannot know with certainty how her politics will develop or whether she will be guided by socialist principles in office. What we do know is that she has demonstrated a willingness to learn, engage with us, and develop her politics without caving to outside interests.

District 10

In Short:

Ten candidates have qualified for this race, but ranked choice voting will ultimately bring the field to three leading contenders: Dion-Jay “DJ” Brookter, Theo Ellington, and J.R. Eppler.

On one side are the progressives Eppler and Brookter; on the other is the big money candidate Theo Ellington. This seat is open for the first time in eight years after longtime progressive bulwark, Shamann Walton, terms out. The key question in this race is whether District 10 will be flipped from progressive to conservative, and whether this systemically neglected and marginalized district can retain or carve out meaningful power in City Hall. 

Environmental racism is a defining issue in this race, as the winner will have to contend with the longtime neglect of the district with decades of exploitation faced by San Francisco’s largest concentration of Black residents. A quarter of Bayview Hunters Point residents identify as Black, while San Francisco’s overall Black population has fallen to 6%, the second-lowest of any major city in the US. This did not happen by accident. From historic redevelopment and redlining to modern day gentrification and gerrymandering, Black San Franciscans have been priced out and pushed out of the city, leaving the relatively “affordable” Bayview Hunters Point as one of the few remaining Black communities in San Francisco. 

DSA SF demands that San Francisco Finish Reconstruction: address the ongoing legacies of racial and economic dispossession through investment in neglected communities and the material conditions needed for people to remain and thrive in them.

The Hunters Point shipyard became a site of severe environmental contamination through decades of US Navy operations, including radioactive pollution that has demonstrably major impacts on residents’ health. The Navy initially covered up the extent of the contamination and has continued to mislead the City ever since. Decades later, the cleanup remains unfinished, leaving nearby residents to contend with the lasting consequences. The unfinished cleanup is also a concrete example of the environmental justice at the heart of the Green New Deal: the communities that have borne the costs of pollution and exploitation should have the power and public investment necessary to reclaim and repair their neighborhoods. 

District 10 has spent decades fighting for environmental justice while being marginalized by the political and economic forces that hold power in City Hall. Today, against the backdrop of the AI boom, the community must also contend with the growing number of technology companies seeking to build data centers in the district. Though a temporary data center moratorium introduced by the current Supervisor Walton passed in October and has the support of all three major candidates, it will expire during the next Supervisor’s term, leaving them to decide how and if they will continue fighting for their community. And that fight is difficult to envision for one candidate (Theo Ellington) who has accepted mountains of donations from the very tech companies that stand to benefit from data center development, including a personal $500,000 check from crypto billionaire Chris Larsen.  This is another reason why Economic Democracy matters in D10: the district’s future should not be determined by the corporations seeking to profit from its land and infrastructure, or by the billionaires financing the politicians who will make those decisions.

Dionjay “DJ” Brookter

Walton’s chosen successor with a solid background in community organizing and progressive causes.

Dion-Jay “DJ” Brookter is a community leader and former Police Commissioner running for the District 10 seat. A mentee of the current Supervisor Shamann Walton, Brookter has assembled a solid core of endorsements from key progressive players across the city: Supervisors Connie Chan, Myrna Melgar, former Supervisor and DSA member Dean Preston, Aaron Peskin, and progressive organized labor.

He centers affordability and housing as the key issues in his campaign. He wants to continue the development of new housing while protecting rent-controlled units from demolition, empower tenants while holding corporate landlords accountable, and establish a San Francisco Public Bank through Proposition B, a goal he shares with DSA SF. He opposed the RV Ban introduced by Mayor Lurie and Supervisor Melgar in 2025, which has pushed hundreds of Bayview and citywide residents into homelessness. He instead advocates for city-funded vehicle storage and rapid housing solutions for RV residents with paths to permanent housing. 

Brookter, like Walton before him, led the Bayview nonprofit Young Community Developers with a long history of empowering the community through workforce development and safety net services. Like Walton, Brookter also served in law enforcement oversight roles, with a mixed record. During his tenure, he fought against police corruption, a vital role as overtime abuse and overpolicing run rampant in the city. But he also played a key role in protecting police officers from consequences of unjustified uses of force. Walton, meanwhile, has reliably been one of the few Supervisors willing to challenge law enforcement, joining first Supervisor Dean Preston and later DSA SF member Supervisor Jackie Fielder in pushing for law enforcement accountability, including establishing the Sheriff’s Department Oversight Board. For Brookter, the question is whether he can carry forward that willingness to challenge law enforcement while addressing the weaknesses in his own record on police accountability.

Walton has been a crucial progressive vote over the past eight years as the Board of Supervisors has tacked further and further to the right. Brookter now has to prove he can build on that legacy of challenging systemic injustice, while his slow start to ramp up his campaign has left the door open for corporate interests to shape the race early.  

Theo Ellington

The choice of moderates and billionaire backers seeking to turn District 10 into their own private developer project.

At first glance, Theo Ellington presents himself as a working class candidate for District 10. He describes himself as a renter who grew up in a working class family in the Bayview and as a community advocate focused on improving conditions and increasing housing in his district. But his campaign funding and network of endorsements tell a different story: he is fully backed and funded by the big money interests that seek to drive the working class out of San Francisco.

Ellington has longstanding political ambitions, having served on four commissions and previously run for District 10 Supervisor in 2018, when he finished third behind Shamann Walton and Tony Kelly. Since then, Ellington has spent years building the political relationships and establishment support needed for a more prominent campaign, particularly with the big money conservative groups seeking full control of the Board of Supervisors. He has courted their support and won the endorsement of the 2026 SF Democratic Party, alongside backing from prominent conservative figures, including Mayor Lurie, Supervisor Matt Dorsey, and Scott Wiener.

Ellington says he opposes new data centers and supports expanding police surveillance, but only with “guardrails.” But he has also received extraordinary financial backing from the players and corporations pushing AI and Flock surveillance technology on San Francisco. He recently received a $500,000 check from crypto billionaire and Trump donor Chris Larsen, the largest individual donation to a San Francisco supervisorial campaign in history. Whatever Ellington’s platform says, his backers are very clear about what they would like from the Bayview: land and resources. 

With backing from Mayor Lurie and other establishment forces backing his campaign, Ellington’s election would shift the balance of power on the Board and replace Walton with a Supervisor fully bought and paid for by conservative big business and big tech.

J.R. Eppler

A small business political outsider and a solid supporter of progressive legislation.

J.R. Eppler is a small business attorney and Potrero Hill homeowner who has served on the Building Inspection Commission and the boards of several Potrero community organizations. He supports Proposition B, the DSA SF endorsed measure to establish a San Francisco Public Bank. His campaign has centered on “changing how District 10 experiences City Hall,” a district that has been long ignored and marginalized in the halls of power.

Eppler’s campaign has been largely funded by individual, small dollar donors and, as of June, he has raised just over $50,000, just behind Brookter’s roughly $70,000. Both were far below Ellington’s more than $200,000, not even counting Larsen’s massive contribution and the independent spending GrowSF is expected to make on his behalf. 

However, Brookter is also expected to receive additional labor spending as the election approaches. Eppler has developed a strong platform and is working hard to build a grassroots campaign, but he lacks the progressive institutional backing, particularly from labor, that would be needed to overcome the billionaire’s choice of Ellington.

Eppler has built a truly grassroots campaign, rooted in neighbor-to-neighbor organizing. But in the era of big money and big donations, his limited institutional backing and campaign resources are unlikely to win.

Excluded:

Pearci “PJ” Bastiany III
Deandra Bryant
Ellsworth “Ell” M Jennison Jr.
Mike Trouble Lin
Jamo Muhamad
Jessica Pessecow
Shawn M. Richard

Assessor-Recorder

In Short:

The role of San Francisco’s Assessor-Recorder is to review the value of taxable property and handle marriage, property, and other public records. It’s a fairly technical, mundane role, but one that can be used to build name recognition without much scrutiny.

The only person running is the incumbent, Joaquin Torres. But he may prove to be a politician worth paying attention to.

Joaquin Torres

The unopposed incumbent with an inoffensive, uninspiring history in office.

Joaquin Torres is running for re-election as Assessor-Recorder for San Francisco, a position he’s held since 2021. Before that, he served as a liaison to Latinx communities under Mayors Newsom and Lee, earning a positive reputation in the community for helping them access the power of the Mayor’s Office. 

Endorsements span the SF political spectrum, from the League of Pissed Off Voters to GrowSF, suggesting that Torres is unlikely to face any pushback. His profile is growing as a politician, and so is his base of conservative endorsers. He may run for higher office someday, and we’ve often seen the corrupting power that big money can have even on well-liked community members. Still, we have very little to go on when it comes to evaluating him, which is why we remain largely ambivalent about his reelection. But with him posting Mayor Lurie-style videos and fundraising for a race in which he’s running unopposed, don’t be surprised if we see more of his name in the years to come.

Public Defender

In Short:

It is hard to talk about the Public Defender’s office without first talking about current San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. Jenkins was appointed to the office after a campaign spearheaded by corporate interests and conservatives succeeded in recalling Chesa Boudin in 2022. Boudin led efforts to soften the disproportionate violence that the legal system levels against minority groups and the working class in general. He moved to end cash bail and end the “three strikes” law, which escalates punishment for lower level crimes. Jenkins worked in Boudin’s office until she joined the campaign to remove him. Her departure came after Boudin reached a plea agreement that prevented her from continuing to prosecute a mentally ill man whom Boudin’s office found not guilty by reason of insanity. She was paid handsomely to work on the recall campaign, which was backed by the big money group, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco.

Jenkins has leaned into “tough on crime” politics endemic to the Republican Party, while maintaining a “liberal” facade. The result has been San Francisco, a supposedly “progressive” city, embracing some of the most draconian law enforcement attitudes in decades. County jails are rapidly filling and, in many cases, pushing the jail system past its breaking point. Black and Brown folks continue to be disproportionately targeted by the criminal legal system. Police surveillance technology is flourishing, while legal protections for immigrants are deteriorating.

For many of the working class and marginalized people caught up in this system, a public defender is their only access to legal protection. As criminal cases have surged, the Public Defender’s Office has faced workloads it says have become unsustainable, with the office reporting a nearly 65% increase in cases filed by the District Attorney since 2019.

The District Attorney’s aggressive charging practices and SFPD’s mass arrests, paired with poor jail conditions, has pushed the Public Defender’s Office to the brink. But Mano Raju, the current Public Defender running for reelection, has made the fight against overcriminalization a central part of his tenure, including challenging excessive caseloads, defending clients’ constitutional rights, challenging police misconduct and abuse, backing immigrants victimized by ICE while SFPD stands by, and supporting the women in San Francisco jails speaking out against rampant sexual misconduct.

Manohar Raju

A bulwark against Lurie, DA Jenkins, and their billionaire allies’ agenda for mass incarceration and arrests.

Mano Raju is running unopposed for San Francisco Public Defender. He has served in the office since 2019, having been appointed by London Breed and winning reelection twice. Raju has faced the difficult task of steering the Public Defender’s Office through surging case numbers and consistent budget cuts, leaving his staff overburdened. In May 2025, Raju took a stand against the City’s efforts to mass arrest and overcharge, arguing that the resulting Public Defender caseloads were pushing the entire criminal justice system to the brink of collapse. The Public Defender began declaring unavailability and refusing to take on additional cases without additional staff. 

This stand demonstrates the power of an independently elected Defender to use the full authority of the office to protect their clients, their staff, and the people of San Francisco. Raju is using his powers to their fullest extent in order to protect his clients, and his fight will have national implications if he succeeds in court. 

Every additional arrest generated by Mayor Lurie’s agenda, and every case pursued rather than diverted before trial, creates another person who must receive constitutionally adequate representation. Mayor Lurie has continued former Mayor Breed’s trend of increasing funding for  the District Attorney and SFPD while simultaneously failing to adequately fund the Public Defender’s office, even as arrests and prosecutions have skyrocketed. 

The fight over the quality of representation working class people deserve points to a larger contradiction in the criminal legal system: the City can dramatically expand its capacity to arrest and prosecute people, without an equivalent expansion of its capacity to defend them. When one side of the system grows unchecked, the constitutional right to counsel becomes increasingly difficult to fulfill.

The Public Defender’s independence is particularly important, this office is one of the few places within the criminal legal system whose institutional purpose is to stand with the person facing prosecution rather than the government bringing the case. For working class people and marginalized communities, that role can mean the difference between having someone fight for their rights and being processed through an increasingly punitive system with little recourse.

It can feel like we are moving backwards toward the era of mass incarceration and the failed War on Drugs, but this race is an opportunity to remember that San Francisco still has people willing to hold the line. We can be proud to have a Public Defender willing to use the power of his office to fight for us.

San Francisco Board of Education

In short: 

As socialists, we believe that universal public education is a central tool of empowerment that should provide people with the knowledge and skills to understand and shape the world around them. That means fighting for free, high-quality public education from early childhood through college, and for schools where students and educators have the resources and power they need to thrive. This is the vision laid out in Freedom To Flourish, which calls for free, quality public education from pre-K through college and for the public resources people need to thrive.

School boards have become major fronts in political fights over equity, teacher pay, race, and privatization. San Francisco is no exception. In February 2022, voters recalled three progressive members of the Board of Education after months of conflict over school reopening, school renaming, Lowell High School admissions, and the district’s broader direction. Those fights were not simply about school policy – they raised a broader question at the heart of Democracy At Work: whether educators and working-class families have meaningful power over the institutions they depend on, or whether decisions are imposed from above.

The current election sees SFUSD again facing major battles over school closures, teacher pay and working conditions, charter schools, and an ongoing budget deficit. 

Those questions have taken on new urgency after the historic United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) strike this year. Nearly 6,000 educators walked out, more than 20,000 people rallied in support, and educators won a new two-year contract with wage increases, fully funded family healthcare, stronger special education support, and sanctuary and housing protections for SFUSD families. 

The election now features two sharply different political coalitions. One is rooted in labor and working-class power. The other is backed by tech wealth, charter school and privatization interests, and conservative parent groups. Two candidates are running independently, outside both major slates. This race is a clear fight over Economic Democracy: who gets to determine the future of public institutions, workers and the communities who rely on it or wealthy donors and private interests seeking greater control over public resources.

The Progressives

After San Francisco educators successfully secured better pay and working conditions in a historic strike this spring, their union has endorsed three candidates who will stand with educators and the families and communities they serve in the struggle against privatization, chronic underfunding, and conservative reformers. 

The progressive slate consists of the three candidates backed by the United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) for the three open seats. All three come from youth and education nonprofit backgrounds and have experience advocating for working class families and students of color: Virginia Cheung from Wu Yee Children’s Services, Ryan Hazelton from Mariposa Kids, and Reina Tello from PODER. 

The slate candidates share a common platform of backing UESF and preventing school closures, while each brings their own priorities and community background. Their primary focus will be supporting UESF and its demands around teacher pay and working conditions, while advocating for expanded resources for homeless students and stronger protections against ICE. The slate represents UESF’s efforts to continue to build the mass movement of working class families that emerged during this year’s teacher’s strike and fight back against the nationwide trend of privatization of public schools and the growth of charter schools.

The slate is endorsed by UESF, past and present socialists in office: Supervisor Jackie Fielder, Dean Preston, the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, and the League of Pissed Off Voters.

Virginia Cheung

Virginia Cheung boasts a long career in fundraising and development roles at a variety of nonprofits including the Chinese American International School, Wu Yee Children’s Services, and Open Door Legal. Cheung is currently the Treasurer of Parents for Public Schools SF, an organization that challenged misinformation being spread by the Friends of Lowell Foundation about the proposed SFUSD ethnic studies curriculum. A single working mother and former English-language learner, she has assembled a broad coalition of nonprofit leaders, progressive elected officials, and City Hall allies.

Ryan Hazelton

Ryan Hazelton is a longtime youth advocate who has fought at City Hall to protect San Francisco’s youth funding baseline, known as the Children’s Fund, and SFUSD’s overall funding. Politically, he has fewer ties to the organized progressive community than his slate-mates and even has some relationships with moderate City Hall, including appointments from Mayor Lurie. Still, UESF and his fellow slate members strongly vouch for him, and his record of youth advocacy and his platform have consistently aligned with working-class interests. 

Reina Tello

Reina Tello is the slate’s most experienced organizer and a longtime working-class advocate. She was born in San Francisco’s Mission District, raised in Potrero Hill & Bayview, a product of K-12 SFUSD schools. A longtime organizer with PODER and a founder of the People’s Budget Coalition, she has been on the progressive side of every major effort, from the fight for a public bank, the teachers’ strike, resisting gentrification in the Mission, redistricting, and many more. Reina’s efforts on creating a San Francisco Public Bank, protecting rent control, supporting teacher’s strikes, and protecting working class interests in the city budget has demonstrated solidarity with DSA SF and progressive organizations across the city.

DSA SF voted to endorse Reina Tello at our October Chapter Meeting.

The Conservatives

GrowSF gathered a slate of the best funded School Board candidates in our City’s history to drain the life out of our public schools through systematic privatization, disenfranchising working educators, and school closures.

The conservative slate consists of Phil Kim, Autumn Brown Garibay, and Tim Tung, three candidates endorsed by GrowSF, who says they are launching their “largest school board campaign ever.” And it’s not just their largest campaign ever, they are planning to spend more money than anyone in our San Francisco history ever has before. 

But why spend so much on a race most people don’t follow?

The answer may have something to do with what happened this year. The teachers’ strike brought working-class families, educators, and community members together around a fight for public education, teacher pay, and the future of SFUSD. It demonstrated the kind of organized power that can emerge when working people fight collectively.

Maybe GrowSF wants more charter schools. Maybe it wants school closures and a permanently smaller public school system. Their main candidate, Phil Kim, helped design the last closure plan after all. 

But maybe they also saw one of the largest demonstrations of working class power our city has seen in a long time and decided they want more say over what happens the next time teachers take to the streets.

Whatever the goal, GrowSF’s slate is Kim, Brown Garibay, and Tung. No need to memorize the names. You’ll be inundated with ads for them soon enough.

Autumn Brown Garibay

Autumn Brown Garibay is a first-time candidate who has never run for office, coming into the race with a background in parent organizing through SF Parent Action, an organization founded in 2020 in response to SFUSD’s pandemic-era school policies and later grew in prominence supporting the School Board recall. SF Parents Action has endorsed her alongside incumbents Phil Kim and Alida Fisher.

One of the clearest reasons for distrust among educators came during the February 2026 teachers’ strike. In the New York Times, Brown Garibay compared the strike to the pandemic in terms of interrupting students’ learning. Most San Francisco parents did not share Brown Garibay’s views and came out in force for their teachers.

Phil Kim

Phil Kim won re-election to the School Board in the June election after running and losing in 2016 and 2018. He was ultimately appointed by former Mayor London Breed in August 2024, coming onto the School Board directly from a job at SFUSD where he led the development of the district’s school closure process. That process resulted in 13 schools being targeted for closure or merger.

Just two months after his appointment, SFUSD announced his proposed closures. The rushed process was ultimately defeated by opposition from working-class parents across the city, who saw the closures as a surrender to declining enrollment and the continued growth of private and charter schools.

Kim now downplays his role, saying he only worked on the process rather than advocating for the closures themselves, but local reporting at the time described him as leader of the movement. He did not publicly dispute that characterization until closures became deeply unpopular.

That history is especially significant because Kim spent roughly a decade at KIPP, a charter school network, as a teacher, administrator, and then national director. Charter schools are publicly-funded but privately-run schools that operate outside of the public ownership and oversight of the school system. 

You will see a lot of money and political capital  spent backing Phil Kim this election season, from sources like Mayor Daniel Lurie (a private school product who sends his kids to private school), Scott Wiener, and especially GrowSF.

Tim Tung

Tim Tung entered the race late, roughly two weeks before the August filing deadline. Despite that, Tung has quickly emerged as the third candidate on GrowSF’s School Board slate alongside Phil Kim and Autumn Brown Garibay.

Tung is an SFUSD parent and chairs his school’s Site Council, but has little political or advocacy record to judge. So how did a relative unknown so quickly become a favorite of the city’s conservative establishment? His sister is Nancy Tung, the conservative Chair of the SF Democratic Party who led the party’s 2026 endorsements of  Manny Yekutiel, Scott Wiener, No on California’s Prop 40 (the billionaire tax), and of course, Yes on her brother. 

Despite his late entry and lack of experience, he will receive eyewatering levels of financial support from GrowSF and the SF Democratic Party.

The Independents

An incumbent and a previous candidate left out of the two big slates.

Alida Fisher

Alida Fisher is an incumbent running for re-election, but this time she is caught between the two slates of this race. UESF endorsed Fisher in 2022, but has chosen other candidates for 2026. Fisher does have the endorsement of SF Parents Action, but GrowSF left her off its slate.

Laurance Lee

Laurance Lee is a second-time candidate running for a seat on the Board of Education. He grew up in the SFUSD system and has a background in real estate development and volunteering. Lee is not part of either slate but has gathered some endorsements and has experience that could make him competitive. Lee was also a proponent of the 2022 School Board recalls, for which he claims to have gathered hundreds of signatures. His endorsers include Scott Wiener and the Chinese American Democratic Club.

Excluded:

Kevin Bess
Deldelp Medina
Michael Turon

San Francisco City College Board of Trustees

In Short:

The City College Board of Trustees sets policy and oversees San Francisco’s public community college, which provides higher education opportunities for residents through Free City College, a nationally recognized model of tuition-free college.

The race features two slates, one backed by the labor unions representing City College faculty, and one backed by big money.

Elijah Ball, Monroe Lace, Erwin Tam, and Ruth Ferguson, were recruited by GrowSF, the billionaire-backed group hellbent on taking over the city and furthering the exploitation of the working class. They were quickly endorsed by the San Francisco DCCC, a group that was recently in the news for altering their own rules to break with the California Democratic Party to protect billionaires from a new state tax. The candidates’ closeness with big money represents the true nature of their run: to give the wealthiest in society more institutional power. 

These positions often fly under the radar during elections but are used by the moderate wing as talent development, like farm teams in major league baseball. People often run for these positions as a stepping stone on the way to get higher office, as Alan Wong did most recently. 

The progressive slate presents its candidates as educators focused on student outcomes rather than political careers. The race illustrates DSA’s Freedom to Flourish demand for free, quality public education from pre-K through college, treating education as a public good rather than a commodity or private investment.

The fight over CCSF’s budget also raises the question of Economic Democracy: whether decisions about public resources and the future of an essential institution are made by the working class or wealthy donors and bourgeois political networks. Protecting classes, staffing, and the education admission of City College is ultimately a fight over what kind of public institution SF chooses to have.

Finally, the role of AFT 2121 and the broader labor movement makes Democracy At Work particularly relevant in this race. Educators and staff are not simply employees whose labor costs need to be minimized, but organized workers who should have a meaningful role in determining how the institution operates. The contrast between the two slates is therefore also a contrast between building working class power inside a public institution versus allowing austerity to weaken that power.

The Progressives

Assembled by AFT 2121, these three organizers with deep connections to the college are labor and progressives’ choice for the Board.

Leah LaCroix

Leah LaCroix is running for a seat on the City College Board of Trustees as a part of the progressive slate. LaCroix is a former San Francisco Youth Commissioner, where she acted as the Coordinator of Community Outreach and Civic Engagement. While serving on the Youth Commission, she was the legislative architect for the Free Muni for Youth program and was the first vice chair and parliamentarian for the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee from 2016 to 2024. 

Leah was born and raised in San Francisco and grew up in the Ingleside neighborhood in District 11. Leah has been active in Democratic party politics locally and currently serves as the president of the San Francisco District 11 Democratic Club. She is also a self described urbanist and transit advocate. Leah has been involved in local politics for many years both in a volunteer and professional capacity, and was the field Director for Sharon Lai who was the progressive and pro-affordability candidate for District 3 in 2024. 

Leah was a dual-enrolled student at City College in high school for her junior and senior years and has close ties to the college. Leah is committed to protecting Free City College, stabilizing the college’s finances, and streamlining enrollment to help more students access education.

Leah, along with the rest of her slate, has been endorsed by American Federation of Teachers Local 2121 (AFT 2121), the California Working Families Party, the United Educators of San Francisco (UESF), and the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club.

Jeremy Lee

Jeremy Lee is a property asset manager from Chinatown, a former volunteer and campaign staffer for San Franciscan progressives Jane Kim and Chyanne Chen, and is the co-president of the Rose Pak Asian American Club, a member of the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club and the California Working Families Party. 

He is running for a seat on the City College of San Francisco Board of Trustees and wants to address “education rationing” and cuts to noncredit programs within City College of San Francisco. Lee also opposes further cuts to Free City College or the district’s noncredit programs and, as a former community college student, supports educational accessibility as a way for working-class immigrants to escape poverty.  

Lee is firmly aligned with San Francisco progressives and serves as the vice president of the Rose Pak Asian American Club. In 2025, the club voted to leave the SF Democratic Party because of its embrace of right-wing organizations in San Francisco politics like GrowSF.

Bunny McFadden

Dr. Bunny McFadden is a former high school English teacher and holds a doctorate in curriculum and instruction. She identifies as a Chicana woman and is a first generation college graduate in her family. Dr. McFadden currently works at the Yerba Buena Gardens and is a Board Member for South of Market Childcare Inc.

As a mother of SFUSD school students, she was a picket line organizer during last spring’s teacher strike. When she is not writing about her experience as a working class mother working extra jobs to afford to pay for childcare for her children, Bunny uses her popular social media account to call out all the ways Mayor Lurie and his tech and real estate allies are making life in San Francisco worse for everyone else. 

Dr. McFadden is running to protect Free City College, address CCSF’s budget shortfalls, and put students and educators first. With enrollment declining and finances under strain, the college faces the dangers of privatization and budget cuts that disproportionately burden working class students and educators. McFadden emphasizes trust, transparency, and collaboration with impacted communities as essential to responsible budgeting, while fighting to preserve access to education and fair wages for educators.

DSA SF voted to endorse Bunny McFadden at our October Chapter Meeting.

The Conservatives

Assembled by GrowSF, these three candidates are poised to use financial difficulties and “fiscal responsibility” as an excuse to cut staff and classes.

Elijah Ball

Elijah Ball is campus planner and running for the San Francisco City College Board of Trustees, he has previously worked on state capital funding proposals for Long Beach City College and Pasadena City College. He is one of 3 candidates, including Monroe Lace and Erwin Tam on the GrowSF slate for City College Board of Trustees. Ball, Lace and Tam are running on a jointly developed program on the current budget allocation of CCS and they seek to resolve an impending fiscal cliff. 

The slate’s analysis on CCSF’s financial challenge is a “mismatch on revenue and rising personnel costs” – while not explicitly stated, their fiscally conservative nature of their solutions imply a transition towards educational pathways that emphasize workforce education, competitions, and transfers over that of more holistic educational opportunities (like in fine arts or further education classes), and supporting personnel and staffing cuts (i.e. “responsible spending”). For this reason, this slate has not been endorsed by AFT Local 2121.

Monroe Lace

Monroe Lace is a substitute middle school teacher and identifies as transgender. She was appointed by Mayor Lurie to the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and oversaw the consolidation of the Human Rights Commission and the Department on the Status of Women under the Agency for Human Rights; which involved budget cuts to several critical programs that served victims of gender-based violence, such as Black Women Revolt Against Domestic Violence. In her GrowSF questionnaire Lace stated that she hopes to be a “fiscal watchdog,” saying she’s an “uncompromising advocate for balancing the budget and living within their means” when it comes to the spending and distribution of funds.

Erwin Tam

Erwin Tam has spent the last 25 years as a municipal financial advisor and is the Director of Financing at the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) and the Chief Financial Officer of the CalHFA Mortgage Relief Program. He says that City College is in a “cycle of waste and mismanagement,” even as the Chancellor of the College, who was hand-picked by the same people backing Tam, was placed on administrative leave in early October for misuse of funds. The big money’s agenda for City College has been in action for a few years and has led to the very instability Tam now seeks to benefit from with the backing of big money.

Excluded:

Kimberly M Hui
Rome Moses Jones
Daniel Landry
Anita Martinez

San Francisco City College Board of Trustees Partial Term

As we noted in our discussion of the GrowSF slate for the City College Board of Trustees, this partial term seat has often served as a stepping stone to higher office. Though this race is unopposed, the moderate establishment’s choice for the seat reflects the continued use of City College as a launchpad for political careers.

The Conservative

A moderate on the rise embracing the billionaire agenda at every turn.

Ruth Ferguson

Ruth Ferguson is a political consultant who has spent her entire career working in Democratic Party politics. She has previously worked for Hillel International, the largest Jewish campus organization and one that regularly conducts Zionist programming on campuses across the country. Ferguson is currently self-employed as a political consultant, including for SF YIMBY since 2023. Most recently, Ferguson has served as Daniel Lurie’s appointee to the City College Board of Trustees.

As a trustee, Ferguson has supported Free City College and supported the successful efforts to restore funding in June of 2026. She has also organized against sexual harassment and assault, drawing on her own difficult experience seeking justice for misconduct she faced while working in the California State Legislature. Most recently, she partnered with Sasha Perigo, socialist housing organizer and sexcual assault survivor, to call for change in San Francisco’s culture of enabling sexual assault in the aftermath of allegations against Manny Yekutiel.

Locally, Ferguson has largely focused her political advocacy and organizing around housing issues, aligning herself and working closely with SF YIMBY. Ferguson is a proud and self-proclaimed member and leader of SF YIMBY and a lead organizer for a YIMBY aligned District 9 Neighbors for Housing which has organized to upzone Bernal Heights, and advocate for the passage of Mayor Lurie’s Family Zoning Plan. 

As with Alan Wong in 2022, who was able to leverage his tenure on the Board of Trustees into a District Supervisor appointment by the Mayor, Ferguson’s appointment to this role seems like a move by the moderate establishment to consolidate power and grant political legitimacy to a future candidate who might challenge for one of the Board of Supervisor seats in 2028.

BART Board

District 8

Sara Barz

The unopposed candidate with concerning support from moderate forces as BART faces threats of budget cuts.

Sara Barz is a transportation planner running for the District 8 seat on the BART Board of Directors, which represents the northern and western neighborhoods in San Francisco. The BART Board is the governing body for the BART system, whose functions include setting policy, overseeing the budget, and hiring/firing key agency officers like the general manager.

Barz was previously appointed to and served on the San Francisco County Transportation Authority Community Advisory Committee. Her platform focuses on keeping the basics in order, including clean, safe, reliable BART service, and preventive maintenance. She also supports building more housing near BART stations systemwide and Mayor Lurie’s Family Zoning Plan, which upzoned areas near transit failed to include strong protections for existing tenants.

She has the endorsements of a number of  prominent moderate San Francisco organizations including GrowSF, SF Democratic Party, and SF YIMBY, as well as Mayor Daniel Lurie, Scott Wiener, and many of the conservative members of the Board of Supervisors.

Workers across San Francisco and the Bay Area rely on BART to commute to work and live their lives, and Barz, who is running unopposed, will face difficult decisions as the system approaches a looming financial cliff. DSA SF believes in free, fast public transit and will continue pushing Barz in office to make decisions that put workers’ interests first and advocate for progressive funding measures.

California State Assembly

District 17

Matt Haney (D)

The incumbent with a history of progressive policies who has become an establishment moderate as his connections to the Democratic Party and donors has strengthened.

Matt Haney has been a fixture of San Francisco politics since 2012, serving on the SF Board of Education, Board of Supervisors, and now in the State Assembly. As the District 6 Supervisor, he authored the first Overpaid CEO tax, Proposition L, in 2020, which won handily and established a tax on businesses whose top executive earns 100 times the median compensation of their employees. 

Haney was a progressive on the Board and served as Budget Chair before ascending to Assembly, where his politics have shifted to the right. In Sacramento, he authored legislation that would undo the State’s “Housing First” approach, which recognizes that people experiencing homelessness and struggling with addiction often cannot begin recovery without first having stable housing and their basic needs met. He has also faced controversy over campaign spending practices, including spending campaign funds on expensive game tickets and parties. 

Haney originally ran for the Assembly against David Campos, a noted supporter of San Francisco’s Sanctuary City ordinance, as well as then-longshot candidate Bilal Mahmood. His move to Sacramento left an opening on the Board in District 6 that allowed former Mayor London Breed to appoint Matt Dorsey, who later defeated Haney’s former staffer, Honey Mahogany, in a special election. Mahogany would have been the City’s first transgender Supervisor, but ultimately could not recapture the popularity Haney had built in District 6 after 2022’s redistricting process changed the voting base.

He still straddles progressive labor backing while courting and winning endorsements and funding from major corporations, tech interests, and YIMBY groups. His coalition has expanded well beyond the progressive base that first brought him to office, and his politics have shifted to accommodate those new backers. 

He’s running essentially unopposed, but watch out: regardless of how November shakes out, he’s expected to run for Scott Wiener’s State Senate seat. For progressives who once backed him, his trajectory has been a disappointment, but a lesson in the ability of big money to corrupt working class ideals.

Manuel Noris Barrera (R)

The Republican candidate running on culture war issues, with no fundraising and little hope of victory.

Manuel Norris-Barrera is a realtor who is running as a Republican against incumbent Matt Haney for California Assembly District 17, which represents the eastern side of San Francisco. He is running for the position for the second time. In the 2026 primary, he qualified as a write-in candidate with 0.4% of the vote. While he is endorsed by the Republican Party of California and the San Francisco Republican Party, he has not fundraised any significant amount of money for his 2026 campaign. 

He has not updated his website since his 2024 run and what platform is there is sparse, highlighting community safety, family values, and American exceptionalism as his core principles. On his Twitter account, he pushes election fraud conspiracies, vaccine skepticism, and other culture war issues.

District 19

Catherine Stefani (D)

A longtime San Francisco conservative Democrat taking her anti-tenant policies to the State level.

Catherine Stefani is a conservative Democrat running for re-election to the California State Assembly, representing District 19, which covers the west side of San Francisco and part of San Mateo County. She has held this role since January 2025, was District 2 Supervisor in San Francisco from January 2018 to December 2024, and previously worked as a prosecutor.

As supervisor, Stefani consistently supported increasing police funding and argues to this day that the over $800 million department remains under-resourced. She was the first member of the Board of Supervisors to support the recall of progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin. In June 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, she was the only member of the Board of Supervisors to vote against then Supervisor Dean Preston’s eviction moratorium.

One redeeming part of Stefani’s record is her consistent support for survivors of gender-based violence. In 2022, she authored Proposition D, establishing a right to free legal counsel for domestic violence survivors in civil matters related to their abuse. However, this has remained an unfunded mandate since its passage, despite Stefani’s close political relationships with both Mayor Breed and Mayor Lurie. This stands in sharp contrast to effective socialist organizing as demonstrated by DSA SF member former Supervisor Dean Preston, who passed the Tenant Right to Counsel, which guarantees free legal counsel to tenants facing eviction, and then fought year after year to secure its funding and protect it from budget cuts.

Since entering the State Assembly, Stefani has continued to oppose measures reducing the harm caused by criminal convictions and has played a key role blocking tenant protections. In 2025, she did not vote on AB 704, which would have allowed people with certain low-level convictions from before age 26 to petition to seal or destroy their records. In 2026, she abstained on AB 1157, a bill that would have expanded tenant protections under California’s Tenant Protection Act.

Stefani is a politician who has consistently aligned with law enforcement and corporate interests while offering ineffective support for survivors of gender-based violence. Unfortunately, this race leaves us with no candidate who represents the politics we want to see.

Philip Louis Wing (R)

The Republican choice for office despite barely campaigning.

Philip Louis Wing, despite being the only other name on the ballot, appears to not be campaigning for the State Assembly seat. His website has no policy positions, no candidate information, and no upcoming events. He has no visible social media presence. He has earned the endorsement of the California GOP and the California Young Republicans on the basis of not being the incumbent Democrat and nothing else. 

California Governor

In Short: 

At the statewide level, California’s political system is all Democrat-controlled: both our Senate and Assembly have a Democratic Party super-majority, and Democrats have won the Governor race in every election over the last 15 years.

Under these conditions, the issues that define the Democratic and Republican parties on the national level break down. Big money interests that, in other states, would manifest as support for Republicans, instead align behind Democrats to access power. This coalition embodies what it means to be a corporate Democrat: furthering the economic interests of big business, especially the tech and real estate industries, while taking largely performative stances on immigration, climate change, race, and gender issues. 

An incredible range of active issues in California would benefit from socialist leadership. The tech industry, which has contributed millions to the frontrunner Becerra, is increasingly lining up behind a vision of surveillance at home, imperialist violence abroad, and an international subordination of working people atop a massive environmentally and financially devastating data center build-out. Climate change is leading to rampant and worsening wildfires across the state every summer and fall. Real estate interests are increasingly winning state level deregulation of the housing market and preempting responses at the city level, funding the YIMBY movement and further enriching the wealthy as rents soar. Agricultural interests are draining the state’s water to grow cash crops, while AI data centers spring up in poor and rural communities, stress the power grid and reinvigorate the fossil fuel industry.

These issues are not on the ballot because both parties support the industrial interests behind them, and California Democrats seek to protect the status quo above the needs of the working class.

Xavier Becerra (D)

A career politician deeply embedded in the corrupt pro-business heart of the California Democratic Party; a less megalomaniacal Gavin Newsom.

Xavier Becerra embodies the California corporate Democrat system. Born and educated in California, Becerra went to work in California state politics shortly after graduating from law school and quickly won a State Assembly seat. In 1993, he won a seat in US Congress and served through the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations, before returning to California as the State Attorney General in 2017. After Biden’s victory in 2020, Becerra served as his Secretary of Health and Human Services, before returning once again to California to begin his campaign for Governor.

This is the resume of a high-level Democratic Party team player; at every level, his position and trajectory have been shaped by the Democratic party, while he has largely avoided issues that would generate any controversy.

During the primary, Becerra trailed the Democratic machine’s preferred candidate, Eric Swalwell, until sexual assault allegations forced Swalwell to suspend his campaign. Swalwell’s supporters shifted rapidly to Becerra as the remaining candidate best-positioned to carry out the Democratic Party’s marching orders.

Because of the political dynamic of California, Becerra is almost certainly guaranteed a landslide victory. He is also guaranteed to continue the approach of his predecessor, Gavin Newsom. He will act as a safe pair of hands for the wealthy interests in Big Tech, Finance, Agriculture, Media, and Real Estate that bought him the seat. He will continue to promote culturally liberal positions, and maintain the stability of a system that reliably produces increasing inequality, economic subordination of working people, and reactionary violence against the marginalized.

A vote for Becerra is a vote to keep this train running along the tracks.

Steve Hilton (R)

An unserious Fox News host at the intersection of the Trump Administration and Silicon Valley.

Steve Hilton is a Fox News commentator who once served as an advisor to British Prime Minister David Cameron. In that role, he helped rebrand Britain’s Conservative Party as more cosmopolitan and socially progressive. But after moving to the United States in 2012, Hilton aligned with American conservatism and endorsed Donald Trump in 2016. As a candidate for governor, he has campaigned on positions including stricter immigration policies, tax cuts, restrictions on gender-affirming and reproductive rights, and policies intended to promote growth in the crypto and AI industries.

As socialists, our disagreements with him are innumerable. Luckily, his chances of actually winning are slim to none. Hilton’s backers are fairly typical for a California Republican: big real estate, the energy sector, and big tech. Promises of low taxes, unclean energy, and support for data centers have courted these groups successfully – but not exclusively. Importantly, Xavier Becerra’s war chest is filled with money from many of the same sources, and often in much higher quantities. Regardless of who wins in November, the state’s corporate interests will be satisfied. But, given the national climate, most of them seem to be opting for Becerra’s reheated neoliberalism.

California Lieutenant Governor

In Short:

The Lieutenant Governor of California has two main jobs. The first is what one would expect: serving as the acting Governor if the Governor is away from office. The second, is serving on or appointing others to sit on all of the major state boards, including the UC Board of Regents and California Community Colleges Board of Governors. 

This gives the Lieutenant Governor meaningful power over the direction of higher education in California and some influence over the state’s economy, making it far more impactful than many realize. Oliver Ma understood that and built an example for a socialist campaign for Lieutenant Governor, running in the primary on funding housing, divestment from Israel, and improving working conditions for educators. Unfortunately, Oliver Ma was defeated in the primary, leaving us with two candidates with no interest in challenging the power of capitalism: Fiona Ma and Gloria Romero.

Fiona Ma (D)

The current California State Treasurer deeply embedded in establishment Democratic politics with a deep dedication to Zionism.

Fiona Ma is a perfect encapsulation of machine politicians within the California Democratic Party. Prior to becoming California State Treasurer, she served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the California State Assembly. She has climbed the ranks of elected office by staying in lock step with the California Democratic establishment, corporate and real estate interests, and police unions – the same groups that are funding her current campaign for Lieutenant Governor. 

As Treasurer, she serves on the Board of Administration for CalPERS, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. She has opposed the BDS Movement (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions), including calls for CalPERS to divest from Israeli bonds and defense contractors contributing to the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the apartheid Israeli government. 

California taxpayers had to spend $350,000 in public funds to settle with an employee of Ma who accused her of sexual harassment. She continues to be enabled despite her inappropriate conduct, as Democrats at every level continue to back harassers.

If she becomes the Lt. Governor of California, she will serve as a member of the University of California Board of Regents and will be in a position to oppose the UC system divesting from Israeli interests.

Gloria Romero (R)

A culture-war Republican intent on bringing conservative attacks on trans folks to California.

Gloria Romero is the Republican Party’s choice for Lieutenant Governor. While she copies many of the worst of Ma’s policies, she expands on Ma’s anti-working class agenda with attacks on public education, transgender Californians, and voting rights. Romero is a supporter of expanding charter schools, a system built to erode the public education system. She has leaned into the national Republican narrative around “fairness in women’s sports,” a thinly-veiled attack on trans rights. Romero is a part of the Republican Party’s wider effort to increase wealth inequality and erode our rights, and for that reason she is unfit to hold the office of Lieutenant Governor.

California Secretary of State

In Short:

The most important role of the Secretary of State, especially during attacks on our right to vote by the Republican Party, is administering elections. DSA believes in a democratically-run society, in sharp contrast to our current system that continually denies full representation to the working class. However, fascistic attacks against the current system are intended to weaken peoples’ faith in democracy as a concept. We are strongly opposed to those attacks and are supportive of reforms to the current systems that expand voting rights on a path to larger changes.

Shirley Weber (D)

The current California Secretary of State with a history of civil rights advocacy and expanding voting rights.

Dr. Shirley Weber is the current California Secretary of State, appointed in 2021 after serving in the California State Assembly and becoming the first black California Secretary of State. In the State Assembly, she authored AB 3121, which established California’s Reparations Task Force, and her legislative record included a constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to Californians on parole. As Secretary of State, Weber has emphasized voter participation, election transparency, voter education, and access to vote-by-mail. 

Her background defending the civil rights of Californians positions her to confront the growing national conflict over voting rights, election access, and public trust in elections.

Donald Wagner (R)

A long-time Republican lawmaker backed by anti-tax groups.

Donald Wagner highlights fiscal responsibility as the core of his accomplishments, serving in the State Assembly and as Mayor of Irvine, earning him the endorsement of the loathsome Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. However, in a time of immense economic inequality and a need for a radical reconstruction of society, austerity is ill fitting. Compared to Weber’s commitment to voting rights, Wagner is a far inferior fit for the office.

California State Controller

In Short:

The State Controller is California’s chief financial officer, responsible for accounting and auditing our State budget while maintaining public trust and transparency. In the 2026 race, Democrat and San Franciscan Malia Cohen is running for re-election against Republican Herb Morgan. With Cohen as the most likely winner, this race offers an opportunity to examine her growing role in State politics from her roots as President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Malia M Cohen (D)

A San Francisco native with a brief history of progressive legislation but deep ties to establishment figures and a desire to climb the ranks of the Democratic Party.

Malia Cohen is a careerist politician who has steadily climbed the ranks of the Democratic Party, from serving on the SF Board of Supervisors, working on Gavin Newsom’s 2003 mayoral campaign, the State Board of Equalization, and now as the incumbent State Controller. 

On the Board of Supervisors, Cohen represented District 10 from 2011 to 2018 and often aligned with the City’s more moderate establishment, while also taking progressive positions on key issues that impacted her district. 

Cohen has a long history of supporting the creation of a public bank in San Francisco, helping establish the initial task force in 2017, continuing to support it at the state level, and endorsing 2026’s DSA SF-endorsed Proposition B which takes a major step towards making this effort a reality.

However, Cohen also sided with then Mayor Lee and the moderate faction of the Board at a key moment in 2015, voting against stronger restrictions on Airbnb and short-term rentals that tenant advocates had proposed as a way to protect against gentrification and displacement. The affordability crisis for renters advocates warned about have since become a defining reality for the working class of the city.

Cohen’s record is ultimately mixed, and her ascent to statewide office has brought her increasingly close to the corporate Democrat machine. Her 2026 campaign has raised more than $1 million while she has picked up the endorsements of establishment players like Xavier Becerra and Gavin Newsom. Cohen’s win would benefit the establishment that now trusts her to fall in line with their priorities: supporting the tech industry and real estate development.

Herb Morgan (R)

A Republican candidate inspired by Elon Musk’s DOGE attacks on our government and block-chain technology to turn California into a tech hellscape.

A key tenet of Herb Morgan’s platform for California State Controller is to place state finances onto the blockchain. His stance, inspired by Elon Musk’s fascistic decimation of government services at the national level, is that fighting government inefficiency is more valuable than protecting the few social safety nets available for the working class, and having him as State Controller would be devastating.

California State Treasurer

In Short:

The California State Treasurer manages cash flow, banking, debt, and investment for the state, along with a handful of boards and commissions that do the same work. Controlling the state’s investments could mean divesting money from Israel, fossil fuels, or the American war machine. It is why the Democratic Party works so hard to ensure that loyal establishment politicians keep control of the seat. In the future, we would like to see a socialist move California’s finances in a more positive direction. Unfortunately, for this cycle, you have a choice between a fairly standard Democratic and Republican politician.

Jennifer Hawks (R)

A run-of-the-mill conservative supported by the Republican Party.

Jennifer Hawks is the Republican choice for California State Treasurer. Her campaign promises are standard fare for a conservative treasurer: increasing transparency, improving accountability, and tackling California’s debt. There isn’t anything particularly offensive about her stated campaign except her connection to the Republican Party, an organization built around protecting wealthy interests and anti-working class values. If we are forced to take anything entertaining from her campaign, it is the loud, clearly AI-made campaign song that plays in the background of her website.

Eleni Kounalakis (D)

An establishment Democrat with ties to big business, a history of pro-Zionist advocacy, and a clear desire to climb the establishment ranks.

Eleni Kounalakis is an establishment Democrat seeking to climb the ranks of California politics by advancing through relatively obscure offices. She has served as Lieutenant Governor of California twice, a position people often use to launch an attempt to run for Governor. She did try to run for governor in 2024, but dropped out four months later and moved on to running for this less important position. Her family has a real estate empire in Sacramento and are long-time mega-donors to the Democratic establishment including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. She was rewarded for sharing her family’s wealth with Obama with a position as ambassador to Hungary. She’s pro-big business, pro-Zionist, and pro-real estate all the way through. 

She’s been pro-Zionist since the genocide began, criticizing the student protests on campuses and admonishing universities who dared to negotiate with protestors. Aside from her first run for lieutenant governor, she has run basically unopposed. She’s held a voting spot on the SF DCCC for years because she finds her home in the wealthy corridors of District 2 and has regularly voted against DSA SF and working-class policies.

This position is not particularly powerful or notable on its own. This is a candidate and party, using this position to serve the influence of the wealthy establishment and build the bench of Democrats who will stay in line and vote with corporate interests.

California Attorney General

In Short:

After the Governor, the Attorney General (AG) is California’s second most powerful office. The AG leads California’s Department of Justice, serves as the state’s chief legal counsel, and can act as a major check on state and federal executive power. Most fundamentally, the AG serves as California’s highest-ranking law enforcement official.

The Attorney General exists to enforce the laws of the state, but the state itself is not politically neutral. Our legal system exists to protect private property and grant the state enormous power to discipline and punish the working class. Even “progressive” AGs can make only incremental changes to this system because their fundamental role is to administer and legitimize the institutions of the capitalist state: the police, prisons, courts, and property law. 

The unique power and influence of California’s Attorney General, specifically its ability to kickstart massive political careers, can be best examined through former office holders: former Chief Justice Earl Warren, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and current Governor candidate Xavier Becerra.

Rob Bonta (D)

A former Deputy City Attorney of San Francisco with a somewhat-progressive background, but deep financial ties to big business and establishment interests.

Rob Bonta began his political career in the Bay Area, Bonta first served as the Deputy City Attorney of San Francisco and then on the Alameda City Council. Bonta then served in the CA State Assembly starting in 2012, prior to his AG appointment by Gavin Newsom in 2021. 

As the child of Filipino immigrants and activists, Bonta has had a history of progressive legislation. Alongside bills to protect consumers against surprise medical bills and championing the inclusion of Filipino immigrants in California’s history education, Bonta is perhaps best known for his attempts at criminal justice reform. He has championed the elimination of California’s money bail system, mandatory independent review of police officers involved in shootings, and a statewide ban on private prisons. Despite the real benefits these reforms may provide, they leave the underlying institutions of policing, incarceration, and state punishment fundamentally intact. A system can abolish cash bail while preserving mass incarceration. It can require independent review of police shootings while preserving the police institution itself. It can ban private prisons while expanding a public prison system. Ultimately, Bonta serves to maintain the oppressive structure of law enforcement, which is made even more clear by his limited actions in this area as the California Attorney General over the past 5 years.

His 2026 AG campaign has raised over $3 million, with notable donations from unions, large companies such as PepsiCo and Stripe, and the California Democratic Party. He has been endorsed by a wide variety of organizations and prominent individuals, from unions and progressive groups such as SEIU, Dolores Huerta, and the Reject AIPAC coalition, to establishment Democrats such as the California Democratic Party and Kamala Harris. Bonta has also earned the endorsement of notable moderate and conservative San Francisco groups, such as YIMBY Action and GrowSF. 

Despite many contradictions, Rob Bonta has advocated for reform and legislation, including filing multiple lawsuits against the fascistic Trump administration’s attempts to end DEI programs. For this reason alone, Bonta would certainly be a better Attorney General than his Republican opponent. However, DSA SF knows that incremental criminal justice reform coming from the Attorney General’s office will be ineffectual at best. American criminal justice is built on a bedrock of racism, inequality, and extreme state violence. Any hope of remedying this system requires a fundamental shift on how the state doles out punishment and the abolishment of the prison-industrial complex and policing. This is especially relevant in San Francisco, where our homeless neighbors are overly policed everyday. This is why DSA SF’s work on homelessness strives to find compassionate solutions that avoid the ineffectual use of state violence.

Michael Gates (R)

A conservative Republican leaning into narratives about “rising crime” to expand the police’s war against the working class.

A main tenet of the Republican Party’s fascist approach to politics is to create a perception of “rising crime” and the need for violent oppression to combat it. Putting someone with that ideology into the office of Attorney General would be disastrous for California. Michael Gates advocates for an increase in police presence, an attack on our transgender neighbors through an “enforcement of Title XI,” an erasure of faith in democratic values through “election integrity investigation,” and an attack on unhoused Californians through cruel encampment sweeps. As Donald Trump continues to utilize the state to erode our society and commit violence against the working class, electing one of his devotees to the Attorney General position is unacceptable. 

California Insurance Commissioner

In Short:

The California Insurance Commissioner heads the state department tasked with licensing and regulating insurance markets, an office of growing importance as climate change increases the frequency and ferocity of wildfires. Many times, “down-ballot” offices like these are places for politicians with larger career ambitions to cut their teeth and grow their reputation. However, Jane Kim is taking a more visible approach, posturing to use the office as a way to expand public insurance options and provide better consumer protection. She is opposed by Ben Allen, a more conservative candidate who is collecting the establishment and corporate endorsements in an effort to stop Jane Kim. 

Jane Kim (D)

A Sanders-endorsed candidate aiming to use a somewhat-obscure office to push back against big business and expand public services for all.

Jane Kim is running as the progressive candidate in the Insurance Commissioner race. She touts her endorsement from Bernie Sanders, labor unions, and the California Working Families Party. Kim served on the SF Board of Supervisors, representing District 6 for 8 years. As Supervisor, she was largely aligned with the progressive political faction, supporting policies such as raising the minimum wage to $15, higher affordability requirements for housing developments, and creating the tuition-free City College program. A notable exception was her role in brokering the Twitter tax break deal, which offered a reduction in payroll tax to attempt to incentivize the company to move to the mid-Market area within Kim’s district. 

Her campaign represents an interesting attempt to politicize the role of Insurance Commissioner in a way that it has typically not been perceived. Her platform is framed as “Insurance for All,” echoing progressive policy slogans like Medicare for All. These include proposals to provide a public option for auto insurance, “enforce minimum coverage standards,” and freezing rates after you file a claim. 

Kim has received significant opposition from big money groups. Locally, right wing tech money group GrowSF has endorsed her opponent, Ben Allen. During the primary, business groups spent around $1.5 million against Kim, mostly from employer coalition JobsPAC. Crypto billionaire Chris Larsen also gave $1 million to a PAC supporting Ben Allen’s primary campaign. 

This race is a chance to reshape how insurance companies do business in California. Time and again, we have watched skyrocketing rates price people out, and insurers making it hard to collect on claims after a disaster. A Kim win could strengthen working-class organizing, because her proposals for Disaster Insurance for All and a public option for auto insurance put policyholders ahead of shareholders.

Ben Allen (D)

A deeply uninspiring candidate who has been boosted by big business interests desperate to maintain a dysfunctional status quo.

Ben Allen is a State Senator for California District 24. He has a history of advocacy for environmental protection and voting rights in addition to insurance reform. Overall, his platform is fairly moderate: push back against bad insurance companies while providing more insight and accountability for his office.

However, the laundry list of endorsements he has received from establishment Democrats and corporate interest groups like GrowSF show his current role in the race: to be the spoiler to Kim’s vision for the role of Insurance Commissioner. Allen is not an inspiring candidate, and to those groups, he doesn’t need to be. His role is to defend whatever status quo is putting corporate interests above those of the working class.

California Superintendent of Public Instruction

In Short:

The Superintendent of Public Instruction is the head of public education in the state of California, drawing candidates to run for the role for different reasons. For Republicans, it is a chance to wage pointless culture war issues while degrading public education, a foundational right of any person that conservatives want to undermine. For some careerist politicians, it is seen as a stepping stone towards higher office. But for some union-backed candidates, it is an opportunity to strengthen the working conditions of educators while improving the quality and accessibility of education.

The current contest is between a culture-war Republican, Sonja Shaw, and a union-backed School Board President, Richard Barrera. Although we would never advocate for a candidate like Shaw, Barrera’s speckled past requires some further inspection.

Richard Barrera (D)

A long-time labor advocate with a strong plan for the office and significant labor backing but with a concerning past.

Barrera has been President of the San Diego Unified School Board since 2008, delivering success both in quality of education and conditions for teachers over his tenure. Barrera secured the Democratic nomination over his primary challengers by earning the endorsement of the California Teachers Association early in his campaign. After his victory in June, many teachers unions from across the state joined in their support of him. 

However, Barrera has dealt with a lingering dispute with the labor union he once worked for: UFCW Local 135. He was a staunch ally of a previous head of the union, Mickey Kasparian, even as Kasparian was credibly accused of sexual harassment and ousted from his position. Now, years later, Barrera has earned the endorsement of the California Teachers Association despite a letter written by current UFCW Local 135 urging the union to reconsider. 

Barrera’s balance of advocating for both teachers and students is reflected in his listed priorities. He wants to develop workforce housing for educators, as well as strengthen the pipeline for new educators to enter the public school system. He wants to expand universal transitional kindergarten and strengthen early childhood education. His goals are lofty, and with the backing of so many educators’ unions and a proven track record in the San Diego school system, Barrera has assembled an inspiring campaign.

Overall, Barrera’s track record paints a messy and unfortunate picture. His success in San Diego, his advocacy for and backing by unions, and his ambitious plan for office are impressive. But his unwillingness to distance himself from Kasparian is disappointing.

Sonja Shaw (R)

A vaccine skeptic attacking our transgender neighbors in an attempt to erode public education as an institution.

Sonja Shaw is exactly what the Republican Party wants out of a superintendent candidate: someone obsessed with culture war issues and openly hostile to transgender Californians. Her campaign highlights “protecting women’s sports” and removing “radical ideologies” from the classroom. She is also a vaccine skeptic and relitigates the safety protocols put in place during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling them “silencing parents’ voices.” Rather than trying to build our education system into one that protects, educates, and cares for all students regardless of background, Sonja Shaw is the perfect representation of how the Republican Party continues to divide us and undermine public education.

California Board of Equalization

District 2

In Short:

The Board of Equalization is a statewide agency that oversees the collection of taxes and fees. There are four elected members who represent districts, as well as the State Controller who serves as the fifth member and is elected by the entire state. 

Sally Lieber (D)

An incumbent running a corporate-free campaign.

Sally Lieber started as a City Council Member in Mountain View, served in the State Assembly, and then as Chair of the State Board of Equalization. She is running a corporate-free campaign, and has emphasized priorities of recruiting staff, addressing homelessness and housing instability, and climate sustainability.

She is endorsed by a myriad of Democratic clubs and party chapters, as well as many statewide Democratic electeds, but notably, not Governor Newsom.

John Pimentel (D)

A former Housing Commissioner backed by moderate Democrats and corporate interests.

John Pimentel is a former California Deputy Secretary for Transportation and Housing Commissioner in Menlo Park. His campaign emphasizes ending the sales tax on food, closing tax loopholes, and strengthening accountability.

The main notable difference is the endorsements that have chosen Pimentel over Lieber. Moderate Democrats like Treasurer Fiona Ma, Congressman Kevin Mullin, and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, as well as GrowSF and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, have all thrown their support behind Pimentel, representing a perceived threat to capitalist interests in Sally Lieber.

United States House of Representatives

District CA-11

In Short: 

For the first time in 40 years, CA-11 will send a freshman representative to the US Congress. The primary to fill Nancy Pelosi’s seat in the House of Representatives was hotly contested and demonstrated the convoluted politics of our local Democratic Party. Saikat Chakrabarti, a tech centimillionaire with progressive positions but no experience in office to back it up, ended up losing to Connie Chan and Scott Wiener in June. Scott Wiener is the centrist, establishment candidate, and he’s been a vocal ally to Israel and the real estate lobby over his career. Tracking to his left is Connie Chan, a progressive supervisor with strong support from labor but an unfortunately inconsistent record on policing.

The contrast between the candidates also puts several of DSA’s demands directly on the ballot. It illustrates why A Real Democracy calls for getting rid of lobbyists, dark money, and Citizens United and publicly funding all elections. Wiener’s approach to housing is directly opposed to the demand for Housing for All: whether housing is treated as a human right or primarily used as an asset for developers and investors to profit. Further, his record on homeless sweeps outlined below highlights the need to End Mass Incarceration and Police Immunity. The candidates’ sharply different positions on a Free Palestine, and the need to End the U.S. War Machine is especially consequential in a congressional race where a representative will have a direct role in determining U.S. foreign policy and whether to fund Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Scott Wiener

The godfather of YIMBYism, using abundance as a pseudonym for catering to developers, expanding the police state, and embracing Zionism until it is politically inconvenient.

Scott Wiener is a corporate Democrat with a long history in local and state elected roles. Now running for national office, he has firmly established himself as the capitalist candidate in the CA-11 race. While Wiener has adopted some positions that align with progressive causes, such as abolishing ICE, pledging support for universal healthcare, clean energy, reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, and public transportation, his loyalty to capital and the state of Israel have always put him at odds with DSA SF.

What is most disqualifying is Scott Wiener’s ardent legacy as a Zionist. His refusal to call the genocide in Palestine a genocide and his assertion of Israel’s right to defend itself should make him unfit to hold a congressional seat. He has consistently used his position of authority to retaliate against protestors, student activists, and workers supporting a free Palestine, including agitating for UCSF workers to be fired for speaking out against Israel’s genocide. Wiener recently adjusted his position and finally called the genocide a genocide. That should be recognized as a cynical move from a politician who sees how the political winds have shifted, rather than a signal that he would take a principled stand against imperialist foreign policy and genocide. Notably, Wiener’s passage of AB 715 last year prevents teachers in California from adopting the same position he now claims to support.

Wiener has also been the loudest proponent of market rate solutions to the housing crisis, and has conveniently waved away the legacy of displacement that his housing policies have directly caused; It happened when he introduced SB 827 and SB 50, bills deregulating local zoning restrictions that were successfully defeated by broad coalition of housing and social justice groups and subsequently with the passage of the similar SB79. As wealthy tech and real estate interests see the ongoing deregulation as an opportunity to profit off of housing, the people of San Francisco face highest-ever rents and eviction rates. Wiener also authored Proposition Q in 2016, which set the stage for a decade of brutal homeless sweeps, addressing housing insecurity with criminalization rather than the housing and public services.

Since 2020, a significant chunk of his funding has been from the real estate and tech lobby, and this support has only solidified over time, with Families for an Affordable SF, a real estate aligned PAC, raising more than half a million dollars in support of Wiener and skirting campaign rules around directly coordinating with Wiener’s campaign. His other donors are largely aligned with corporate and real estate interests and come from the usual suspects of AI, Crypto and corporate YIMBYs, including but not limited to GrowSF, Garry Tan, Abundant Future, Anthropic and Chris Larsen. 

Wiener’s story is a sad example of how corporate money corrupts our politics and the ways Democratic politicians serve their wealthy donors and the forces of capital while attempting to appear progressive to voters. Despite Wiener’s support for the LGBTQ+ community, including passing legislation like SB 934, SB 107, and SB 179, and his efforts to unmask ICE agents, No Secret Police Act: SB 627, these successful bills have never required Wiener to stand up to or come into real conflict with his corporate backers. Such politics are limited to dampening the worst symptoms of economic inequality while simultaneously fueling its increase.

Connie Chan

A long time San Francisco progressive with strong labor backing and community support who has routinely stood up for the working class, while occasionally standing down when opposition is too high.

Connie Chan is a prominent member in the SF progressive establishment. She was an aide in Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s office early in her career and in many ways is seen as his successor. She is supported by the majority of the unions in San Francisco, including the SF Labor Council which is responsible for running her campaign. As the former budget chair on the Board of Supervisors from 2023 to August of this year, she has defended important funding for city services, prevented the layoffs of city workers and restored funding for many community-based nonprofits that make up a core part of our city’s social safety net.

Chan has taken a stronger stance than her opponent against the Israeli occupation of and genocide in Palestine, correctly calling the occupation a genocide, voting on the SF Board of Supervisors Resolution calling for a ceasefire in January, 2024, and supporting an arms embargo against Israel. 

Chan has consistently supported tenants rights and advocated for anti-displacement policies like establishing the right for tenants to organize, tenant protections, and the exclusion of rent controlled units from Mayor Lurie’s Family Zoning Plan. Notably, however, she has not endorsed Proposition I, a DSA SF-led measure to build affordable and social housing, as she attempts to thread a needle between confronting the housing affordability crisis and alienating centrists in her coalition.

In contrast to her pro-labor politics, Chan has proven conveniently malleable on issues regarding public safety.  In 2020, with Black Lives Matter and the movement against police brutality at its height, she expressed support for radically restructuring the San Francisco Police Department. She has since walked that position back, failing to stand up for meaningful reform despite her public statements of concern about the ballooning spending and fiscal irresponsibility of SFPD. 

Her transportation and safe streets positions have also been mixed. While supporting protected bike lanes in her district and backing a 2021 free Muni pilot program, she has also fought the implementation of dedicated bus lanes on Geary and opposed the conversion of roads into car-free spaces, including JFK Drive and the Great Highway.

As socialists, we have significant reservations about Connie Chan. But, given her opponent’s pro-Israel, pro-corporate and landlord-aligned platform, we find her to be far more responsive and accountable to the working class due to her dependence on the support of progressive and labor coalitions.

District CA-15

In Short:

Congressman Kevin Mullin is almost certain to win re-election in his race against Republican Charles Hoelter. Mullin has not faced a competitive general election since he first ran for the office in 2022, against progressive, and fellow-democrat, David Canepa, with Mullin capturing 55.5% of the vote. He then proceeded to win in 2024 with 73% of the vote against Republican Anna Cheng Kramer.

Mullin’s politics are slightly left of corporate Democrat, but his support of Israel makes it impossible to call him a progressive. In the future, a socialist could run for and capture the district that houses a large chunk of the Bay Area and replace the AIPAC-backed candidate with a proud anti-Zionist, but for now, the choice we have been given is an unfortunate one.

Kevin Mullin (D)

A Zionist lawmaker with a mixed-bag of legislative accomplishments and deep corporate backing.

Kevin Mullin has been a mainstay in Bay Area Politics for more than a decade, first elected to the California State Assembly coming in 2012 and the House of Representatives in 2022. Prior to running for office, he worked for his predecessor, Jackie Speier, as well as his father, then-assemblymember Gene Mullin.

Mullin’s precise political ideology is difficult to pin down, given that he is one of 30 congressmen that are members of both the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) and the moderate, New Democrat Coalition (NDC). Like many other CPC members, Mullin cosponsors the Medicare for All, the College for All, and the Raise the Wage acts and is also a cosponsor of the Green New Deal. 

However, when it comes to international politics, Congressman Mullin is a self-described “Pro-Israel” Lawmaker and was endorsed by Americans for Israel PAC (AIPAC), Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), in his first three elections and received almost $700,000 in support from pro-Israel PACs. However, in July of 2026, DFMI announced they were “pausing” their endorsement of Rep. Mullin due to his vote on an amendment to halt more than $3 Billion of American Aid to Israel. It is also worth noting that Congressman Mullin supported President Biden’s ceasefire proposal only in May of 2024.

Congressman Mullin’s other top donors include biotech and pharma companies such as Gilead, Genentech, Novartis, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca, no doubt due to each of these companies having headquarters and offices in his district.

Congressman Mullin has proven to be a reliably progressive vote in his time in Washington. His tenure is a testament to the shortcomings of progressive politics, our pay-to-play elections, and capitalist formation of the economy.  The congressman has recently come out against funding for the Israeli Genocide in Gaza but he had no problem with the nearly $700,000 in outside spending his campaign received from Pro-Israel groups to defeat a more progressive candidate. The Congressman claims to support increasing taxes on the rich and funding Medicare for All but also takes money from large corporations that lobby against increased taxes and healthcare reforms.

In the future, we would like to see Congressman Mullin face a primary challenge from the left by a candidate who not only talks about taking on the oligarchs in our society, but is also genuinely independent of corporate interests.

Charles Hoelter (R)

The Republican opponent with recycled conservative talking points.

Charles Hoelter’s campaign website, when it isn’t down or sending you to the wrong page, is mostly devoid of policy information, instead pointing to a handful of generic conservative talking points: protecting the second amendment, “securing the border”, and fighting “voter fraud,” recycled fascistic rhetoric that seeks to turn us against our neighbor and degrade our faith in democracy. 

The Local Measures

Proposition A

An AI-written measure which threatens voter oversight and accountability mandates.

Proposition A is a sweeping Charter amendment framed as government streamlining. It grew out of the recommendations of the Commission Streamlining Task Force created by 2024’s Proposition E and was placed on the ballot by a 9-2 vote of the Board of Supervisors, with Supervisors Connie Chan and Jackie Fielder voting no.

The measure runs over 100 pages and makes sweeping changes to the City’s Charter. Its staggering length was possible because it was self-admittedly, written by AI guided by Board President Rafael Mandelman’s staff. Its core change is to move several commissions out of the Charter and into the Administrative Code, meaning the Board could later change or eliminate voter-created oversight bodies with a simple vote. Proposition A is a clear move away from A Real Democracy for working people.

In particular, Prop A could threaten the independence of bodies important to DSA SF, including the Our City Our Home Commission, which oversees the 2018 Proposition C funds that has allowed thousands of people to access housing by taxing big business. Prop A would move the Our City Our Home Commission into the Administrative Code, making its structure and authority easier for the Board to change. This would be a dream come true for the Board and Mayor that has sought to redirect funding away from this science-backed fund every year since its creation.

Ultimately, Prop A reduces the independent oversight that keeps City Hall accountable to the public. By moving voter-created commissions out of the Charter and making them easier for elected officials to restructure, it gives City Hall more power to change the rules and weaken the bodies meant to hold it accountable. For DSA, strengthening democratic control means strengthening public oversight, not making it easier to dismantle.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote No on A

Proposition B

Establishes the structure for a San Francisco Public Bank, a future funding mechanism for affordable housing that would keep San Franciscans’ money in the city and out of the hands of the big banks.

Proposition B would authorize the establishment of a city-owned Public Bank, establishing its governance and guardrails with appointments distributed across the Board of Supervisors, Mayor, and other City departments. This structure is intended to prevent control of the bank from being concentrated in any one office or elected official. The measure also outlines the mission and lending philosophy of the bank: local control, community wealth building, public welfare, and more. It also specifies to avoid industries that have negative socioeconomic or environmental outcomes, including predatory lending, fossil fuels, prisons, firearms, and tobacco. These reforms represent steps toward Economic Democracy, a foundational change necessary to truly move past capitalism.

In addition to DSA San Francisco, Proposition B has support from a broad range of labor and progressive organizations, including SEIU 1021, the San Francisco Labor Council, and the United Educators of San Francisco. It has also attracted support from political figures further to the right, including the SF Democratic Party, Matt Dorsey, and Bilal Mahmood. The limited opposition includes Mayor Daniel Lurie, Supervisors Stephen Sherrill and Alan Wong, and organizations including ConnectedSF.

From Jackie Fielder and community organizers co-founding the SF Public Bank Coalition in 2017 alongside DSA SF, to the establishment of the Reinvestment Working Group under then Supervisor Dean Preston, to multiple resolutions from the Board of Supervisors, the process of creating a Public Bank in SF has been a decade in the making. If Proposition B passes, San Francisco would take a major step towards making history as the first American city with a municipal public bank, although the first public bank in the US, the Bank of North Dakota, was founded by socialists in 1919.

Banks are one of the most durable mechanisms through which wealth is accumulated and concentrated in the hands of a few. They pool enormous amounts of capital, from the collective wealth of the richest people in the world to the life savings of the working class. Despite being free from public accountability or control, they wield immense power to shape the direction of global industries and markets, ensuring that money keeps flowing upward.

In contrast, a Public Bank places that same power in the hands of the working class, keeping public wealth under public control and allowing for democratic decisionmaking to determine the way it is used. Prop B establishes such a bank for San Francisco, and paves the way for the city to stop relying on Wall Street banks to fund public development and local environmental projects. It provides a pathway to divest public funds from fossil fuels, private prisons, and Israeli genocide.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote Yes on B

DSA SF voted to endorse Proposition B at our August Chapter Meeting and is contributing to a grassroots effort to pass this measure.

Proposition C

An expansion of the Housing Trust Fund that, along with Proposition I, would secure key funding for affordable housing in the city.

Proposition C would significantly increase funding for San Francisco’s Housing Trust Fund, raising the annual appropriation from roughly $52 million to up to $125 million and extending the fund’s lifespan by 15 years, from 2043 to 2058. The measure was championed by District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar, passed the Board of Supervisors unanimously, and has received the support of Mayor Daniel Lurie.

First established in 2012, San Francisco’s Housing Trust Fund allocates money to support creating and rehabilitating affordable housing while promoting affordable home ownership programs in the city. Throughout its 14-year lifespan, the Housing Trust Fund has been the city’s only major response to the housing affordability crisis. These funds represent steps towards DSA’s platform planks of Housing for All.

Prop C will inject more funding into this program and extend it to 2058, allowing many more affordable housing units to be built. The funding increase to $125 million a year will come from anticipated property tax growth as a result of last year’s Family Zoning Plan, which generated property value increases on the newly upzoned areas of the city. By capturing this increased value, Prop C allows low to middle-income San Franciscans to benefit directly from increased development.

It is important that the Housing Trust Fund receive more money to continue supporting low to middle-income homeowners and building more affordable housing across the city. But DSA SF knows that Prop C alone isn’t enough. This is why DSA SF has endorsed and campaigned for Propositions I and B which both seek to change the affordability crisis at the roots of the issue. San Francisco’s housing crisis is a massive problem and we need to tackle it on every front. Supporting Prop C and the Housing Trust Fund is one piece of the broader work needed to address the crisis and build more affordable housing in San Francisco.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote Yes on C

Proposition D

A power grab by the Mayor to shut the working class out of local politics by ensuring grassroots citizen initiatives are essentially impossible to get on the ballot without billionaire backing.

Proposition D is a major threat to direct democracy and the power of working class people in San Francisco politics. One of three City Charter amendments placed on the ballot by Mayor Daniel Lurie, Prop D would quadruple the number of signatures required to place a measure on the ballot and is estimated to cost campaigns as much as $1.5 million to get on the ballot. Grassroots resident initiatives like those won by DSA SF and our allies are currently the only way to enact policy in San Francisco without the support of local billionaires. San Francisco’s direct democracy has delivered wins like tenant protections, funding for affordable housing, funding universal childcare, and Free City College which directly and immediately benefit the city’s workers. Prop D also increases the number of Supervisors needed to place a measure on the ballot from four to six, making it much more difficult for a minority of progressive-aligned supervisors (including DSA SF’s lone socialist in office Jackie Fielder) to put issues in front of voters without the support of a broad coalition of moderate, Mayor-aligned supervisors. 

Proposition D is a ruling class power grab, plain and simple. Its aim is to consolidate oligarchic control of San Francisco politics by reducing the ability of grassroots, working-class coalitions to pass progressive policy at the ballot box, an attack against our efforts towards A Real Democracy. It represents a dangerous next step to the growing trend of authoritarianism by self-described “moderates”, who couch the same anti-working class policies of the Republican Party under a message of “common sense ideas” and “government efficiency.” Lurie’s billionaire allies have raised over $17 million already on this raft of measures, more than any ballot measure committee has received in San Francisco history.

Prop D, along with its siblings Propositions E and F, has the support of local billionaires Chris Larsen, Michael Moritz, John Pritzker, Dagmar Dolby, and John Doerr and all the politicians they’ve successfully placed in nearly every elected office in San Francisco.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote No on D

DSA SF voted to endorse No on Propositions D, E, and F at our July Chapter Meeting and is contributing to a grassroots effort to oppose them.

Proposition E

Another attempt at a consolidation of power by the Mayor, empowering one of his appointed officials to make major contract decisions without the approval of the Board of Supervisors. 

Proposition E is part of a larger package of Charter Amendments which seek to centralize power within the Mayor’s administration while undermining the ability of working-class San Franciscans to shape city government. A single campaign committee supporting all three measures has raised over $17 million, mostly from a handful of billionaires including Chris Larsen, Michael Mortiz, and John Pritzker. 

Proposition E empowers the City Administrator, a somewhat obscure position which is appointed by and controlled by the Mayor. If the measure were to pass, it would extend the City Administrator’s term from five years to 10 years, give the City Administrator the authority to propose laws around contracting, raise the threshold for which contracts need to be voted on by the Board of Supervisors, from $10 million to $25 million, and put the City Administrator in charge of the city’s technology and capital projects.

The purpose of this is simple: move more and more power away from the citizen-elected members of the Board of Supervisors and into the hands of an office directly controlled by the Mayor. The current Mayor, along with every previous Mayor since at least 1992, have been servants of capital enabling successive waves of gentrification & displacement, and consolidating more power under the mayor’s office is a clear attack against our values of A Real Democracy.

The most concerning change included in the measure is the increased threshold for contract approval. We have recently seen corruption in the city contracting process, with the Mayor’s awarding of a major contract to OpenGov, a firm with close financial ties to him, against the recommendation of city employees for a lower-cost option. Weakening oversight of large contracts for this administration opens the door to further corruption. 

Our city money going to huge private contracts, with little oversight, would mean less money for transit, housing, health care, and other key services working people rely on. With no Board inquiry into contracts under $25M, working people will be less informed and have less input into the decisions. 

We stand against this attempt to slash democratic accountability over our city’s contracting. No on Prop E!

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote No on E

DSA SF voted to endorse voting No on Propositions D, E, and F at our July Chapter Meeting and is contributing to a grassroots effort to oppose them. 

Proposition F

A third attempt at expanding the Mayor’s power, allowing him to change major city departments without oversight from the Board of Supervisors.

Proposition F is one component of a larger effort by Daniel Lurie and his allies to dramatically increase mayoral power and decrease checks and balances on the executive branch of city government.

Proposition F would grant the mayor, already very powerful under our strong-mayor system, the ability to unilaterally hire and fire department heads and hire deputy mayors at will. Prop F also grants the mayor power to unilaterally change city department responsibilities, merge departments, and completely eliminate departments, without any public hearings or input from the Board of Supervisors. 

Daniel Lurie stands to increase his own executive power with this measure, so it is no surprise that his Ballot Measure Committee, Clean Up City Hall, is the sole funder with over $17 million raised from 48 donors with an average donation of over $350,000. Big tech, big business, and real estate developers stand to benefit from this power grab, as Lurie has demonstrated himself to be a protector of their wealth and YIMBY interests. This consolidation of power into the mayoral position by taking power away from voters and elected legislators would give billionaires a one-stop-shop to essentially buy changes to departments and department heads by funding the mayor.

If passed, Prop F would permanently increase the amount of executive power the mayor has going forward. It is important to note that this would not only grant Daniel Lurie these unchecked powers, but future mayors as well. From a socialist perspective, we believe the working class should have as much say as possible in city departments and their leaders in our efforts towards establishing A Real Democracy. City departments affect countless aspects of public life, including healthcare, transportation, work, childcare, retirement, etc. Current law allows the working class to have input into how these departments are organized via public hearings and their elected district legislators. Prop F would reduce these already sparse protections for the working class.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote No on F

DSA SF voted to endorse voting No on Propositions D, E, and F at our July Chapter Meeting and is contributing to a grassroots effort to oppose them. 

Proposition G

An attempt to reopen the Great Highway after its close in 2024 that represents a years-long fight between those who want the stretch of land to remain a park and those who want it to go back to being a highway.

Proposition G would reopen the portion of Upper Great Highway that is now known as Sunset Dunes Park to private motor vehicles on weekdays, while keeping it closed to vehicles on weekends and holidays. This would largely be a return to how this stretch of land operated from 2021 to 2025 (called the “compromise”), where the roads were closed from Fridays at noon to Mondays at 4:00 AM. However, G would close the stretch to cars later on Fridays, starting at 6PM rather than noon. This is the third time San Franciscans will be voting on this issue, with 2022’s Prop I (unsuccessful) seeking to undo the “compromise” and allow cars full-time and 2024’s Prop K (successful) converting the piece of road into a full-time park. 

Prop G was put on the ballot by Great Highway for Everyone, a group of Sunset residents, motorists, and others who had many issues with Sunset Dunes, including perceived worsening traffic and lack of community involvement in the process. A similar coalition led the recall of Joel Engardio, after he misled constituents on the campaign trail, claiming to support the “compromise”.  

The money is on the side of Save Sunset Dunes, the committee formed to oppose Prop G. They’ve raised more than $750,000 in 2026 from environmental groups, SF progressives, and big tech elites – with the bulk of funds coming from a handful of major tech donors including Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, compared to the just $101,000 that Great Highway for Everyone has raised.

The amount of money for the pro-park side adds to the feeling that this park is being imposed on Sunset residents by outsiders rather than done with the community. However, the No on G coalition is much more diverse than the Yes on G campaign would have you believe. It includes moderates like Scott Wiener and Stephen Sherrill, and those further left like former Supervisors Eric Mar, DSA SF member Dean Preston, and DSA SF Socialist in Office Jackie Fielder. Most unions have not taken a position on this issue, besides SEIU 1021 which endorsed No on G. Many progressive groups have opted out of taking a side on the divisive issue, including the League of Pissed Off Voters and the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club. 

This reflects that the working class is deeply divided on this issue. Due to decades of car-centric planning, the majority of Sunset District (and many other parts of SF) rely on cars to get around: for work, for school, for leisure. District 4 has among the highest private vehicle mode shares in the city, with around 76% of trips currently happening by car. Fast, reliable public transit is severely lacking on the West Side, and these material realities determine how and why different segments of the working class are in such disagreement about this piece of public land. 

There are real ecological benefits to closing this space to cars, including the decreased pollution, noise and artificial lighting, the regeneration of local fauna and flora to a diverse ecosystem that has been systematically degenerated in the past, and of course the actual utility of a public recreational space by the beach increasing physical and mental health for residents. Excessive automobile use is not only detrimental to locals, but also disproportionately harms people in the Global South due to climate change, resource extraction, and wars over oil. 

Segments of the American working class depend on automobiles, so the socialist answer should not be to dismiss these concerns, but to work with the communities impacted to demand safe, fast, free, reliable public transit across the West Side and the rest of the City.  Similarly, fears of real estate speculation and gentrification associated with the park conversion must be taken seriously and channeled through organizing for social housing, tenant unions, and the decoupling of land from the private speculative market. 

These contradictions speak to the need for real solutions to the real problems surfaced by this proposition. Prop G sits at the intersection of the real estate development interests of the past and present contending with serious environmental consequences. Ultimately, only radical transformations like A Green New Deal that address the root causes of these contradictions can resolve these issues. Capitalists and their political representatives will only present band-aids that pit the working class against itself. In stark contrast, DSA organizes for socialism to truly offer the Freedom to Flourish for all people.

Vote your conscience on Prop G, but we must go further to achieve working-class justice through fully democratic and decommodified transit, housing, and land use. Regardless of the fate of this specific stretch of coastside land, we must fight for a better world and a better West Side.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: No Recommendation

Proposition H

A measure to deliver key funding for Muni before significant funding cuts slash service, while distributing the costs between the working and capitalist classes.

Proposition H would fund Muni operations using a “progressive” parcel tax. This means that the rates increase with square footage, similar to what you’d see with progressive income taxes. If either this measure or the Regional Transit Measure (RTM) fail, Muni will be looking at significant service cuts. 

Prop H has a broad array of support, including Mayor Lurie, the entire Board of Supervisors, the SF Democratic Party, SF Tenants Union, Transport Workers Union Local 250A, SEIU 1021, and much more. The measure’s top funders are OpenAI, Anthropic, Airbnb, and Ripple Labs, each having donated half a million to the measure. 

Muni is the backbone of San Francisco. It is an absolutely essential service for the city’s working class and powered by the working class. On the other hand, Muni is also essential for the local and regional economy, which is why we are seeing some of the largest corporations in the world get behind this local ballot measure. 

DSA San Francisco was part of the coalition (Muni Now, Muni Forever) which overcame corporate opposition to ensure the Stronger Muni for All measure is a progressive parcel tax. We secured changes to the tax so that downtown landlords pay closer to their fair share, local unions remain strong, and working people pay less. Prior to our involvement, proposals from the Mayor’s office were much, much more regressive: 100% tenant passthroughs, flat rates across parcel sizes, and not enough revenue to prevent service cuts. These are wins that should be celebrated. Unfortunately, we were not able to get everything we wanted, including removing the $400K cap on commercial parcels and stopping the tenant passthrough altogether. These seemed to be sticking points for Mayor Lurie, as if to say, “We need to help Muni, but only as much as my corporate donors will allow.”

DSA SF believes a better world is possible and a better way of funding transit is necessary. While this measure is imperfect, we recommend San Franciscans vote yes on this measure. We stand in solidarity with Muni operators and riders by keeping Muni running and resolving the current funding emergency, but small and reactive reforms like these can’t deliver the affordable, expansive, and financially-stable public transit system that San Francisco’s working class deserves. For that, we need to think bigger, and we need to win working class power in order to bring those ideas to life. Join us and get organized to fight for a Green New Deal.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote Yes on H

Proposition I

A rededication of existing funding for affordable and social housing after the Mayor’s repeated attempts to slash it amid a skyrocketing affordability crisis.

Proposition I would permanently dedicate funding from the sales of real estate worth over $10M (like skyscrapers and megamansions) to affordable and social housing production, acquisition and rehabilitation of affordable housing, tenant stabilization, and eviction defense programs. This measure would also exempt new multifamily housing construction from the tax.

This revenue comes from 2020’s DSA-endorsed transfer tax increase (coincidentally  also called Prop I). While this original measure in 2020 technically went to the general fund due to legal limitations, it was accompanied by a unanimous Board of Supervisors resolution clarifying that this revenue was intended to be used on rent relief, affordable housing, and similar programs. Since then, moderate Mayors Breed and Lurie have taken advantage of this discrepancy between the letter of the law and spirit of the law and have refused to spend the majority of the money as the voters intended. 

In 2023, new legal precedent allowed cities to dedicate revenue from transfer taxes to specific purposes like affordable housing. In February of 2026, Supervisor Bilal Mahmood and Mayor Daniel Lurie moved to undo Prop I by slashing the transfer tax. This effort to cut taxes for the wealthy has since been shelved, in part due to DSA SF’s letter writing campaign and the momentum on Prop I, but its moderate proponents have maintained that they would still like to cut this tax in the future. Crucially, this means that this measure does not take away from other priorities: the revenue either goes towards affordable and social housing as voters intended, or it will be taken away entirely.

Prop I has earned strong support from a broad swath of groups, including SEIU 1021, IFPTE Local 21, United Educators of SF, AFT 2121, SF Tenants Union, and the Sierra Club. The measure is opposed by Mayor Daniel Lurie, the SF Police Officers Association, SF Firefighters Local 798, SF Building & Construction Trades, SF Chamber of Commerce, SF YIMBY, and the SF Taxpayer’s Association. 

Some of this opposition makes sense, like Lurie and the Chamber of Commerce, who put the interests of capital and private profit above human need, and thus want to be able to cut the tax. But one would think that YIMBY, an organization whose entire premise is supposedly building housing, would support Prop I and funding affordable housing production. Instead, they’ve sided with corporate real estate interests, arguing that this tax on ultrawealthy real estate speculators should be slashed even further in order to spur market rate housing production, ignoring the new housing exemption, and the fact that the vast majority of the revenue comes from large commercial real estate transactions. 

As socialists, we believe housing is a human right; Proposition I would create permanently affordable, mixed-income social housing by using existing taxes on the wealthy speculators that are directly fueling our housing crisis. While one ballot measure is not enough to win the world we deserve, Prop I would be a huge step in the right direction in making San Francisco a place everyone can live. We plan to continue this fight long past this election, but we can’t do it alone. Check out our Social Housing and Tenant Organizing Working Groups to get fight for Housing for All!

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote Yes on I

DSA SF voted to endorse Proposition I at our May Chapter Meeting and is leading the grassroots effort to pass this measure.

Proposition J

A measure that would close a loophole on the taxing of foreclosed properties currently being exploited by real estate interests.

A measure that would close a loophole on the taxing of foreclosed properties currently being exploited by real estate interests.

Proposition J, introduced by Supervisor Bilal Mahmood and Mayor Daniel Lurie, would extend the tax on the sale of foreclosed properties, including large commercial, industrial, and residential properties. The tax is projected to raise $100 to $150 million per year. 

Prop J was originally proposed alongside the “BUILD Act,” which would have cut the real estate transfer tax in half, reducing the revenue that DSA SF is fighting to dedicate to affordable housing through our endorsed measure Proposition I.

Prop J was originally intended to make the “BUILD Act” revenue-neutral, following Supervisor Mahmood’s commitment during the budget deficit not to reduce city revenue. Mahmood later pulled the BUILD Act while awaiting Prop J’s passage.

So while Prop J closes a tax loophole and brings in new revenue, it could also become a pathway to cutting the revenue from Proposition I in the future. We can fight that fight when it comes, and for now, we feel confident supporting Prop J as a measure that closes a tax loophole and brings new money into the city. Our belief in Housing for All leaves us inclined to support measures that impede the commodification of housing.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote Yes on J

Regional Transit Measure

A measure that delivers key funding to BART just in time to prevent service cuts but unfortunately places that cost unfairly on the working class.

A “Yes” vote on this measure supports a modest increase in sales tax across the 5 counties served by BART; a “No” vote  will result in major service cuts across all above transit agencies, 15 closed BART stations, and worsened traffic. 

This is a necessary, crucial tax that is vital to sustaining Bay Area public transit. However, this is also a “regressive” tax, placing a higher proportional burden on working people to pay for this tax. Since this measure would tax purchases rather than income, and because working-class households spend a greater share of their income on necessities than high-income households, this measure is asking for workers to pay more relative to what they earn, rather than asking more from the wealthy or corporations. Funding a universally beneficial good like public transit should not be a burden put onto working people.

Though we recommend voting for this measure, this measure is a lesson about the political power that drives these different measures forward. SB 1031, the predecessor to SB 63 which put this measure on the ballot, originally included a payroll tax on employers, which would have been a progressive tax put upon companies that also heighten demand for public transit. However, it died after business groups, including the Bay Area Council, mobilized against it. Capital had the organizing capacity to kill that bill, and despite organization and support from the SF Board of Supervisors, California YIMBY, and Housing Action Coalition, it could not be saved.

We need substantial change in funding public transit so that it does not fall on the working class to bail out our public transit every few years. A socialist San Francisco means real solutions like a Green New Deal that guarantee free, reliable, climate-positive transit for everyone. 

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote Yes on RTM

The State Propositions

Proposition 1

A bond that would deliver key funding to housing across the state at a time when housing prices are skyrocketing.

Proposition 1, The Veteran and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026, is a bond measure that would authorize $11.25 billion in State borrowing to finance a range of housing programs across California. As the name suggests, a portion of the funding would support home loan programs for veterans, low income senior housing, homeownership loans for low/mid income households, farm worker housing, and student housing. 

California is facing a severe housing affordability crisis as rents continue to rise, pushing people out of cities, and in some cases, California altogether. Bonds are one of the ways state and local governments can finance major housing investments in response to these long term needs. A bond is essentially a loan to the government: the government borrows money upfront and repays it over time, with interest. For voters, the question is therefore not simply how much money a bond raises, but what the government uses that money for and whether the long-term public benefit justifies the cost of repayment. 

We would rather fund housing through taxes on the rich than bonds which further enrich already-wealthy lenders through interest payments. However, in a housing crisis like California’s, a bond that seeks to prioritize the housing needs of the state’s most marginalized communities is worth holding our noses and voting for.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote Yes on 1

Proposition 2

A proposition that would allow more of California’s tax revenue to sit in the General Fund, protecting us from market instability but failing to meaningfully challenge systemic issues that cause the instability in the first place.

A proposition that would allow more of California’s tax revenue to sit in the General Fund, protecting us from market instability but failing to meaningfully challenge systemic issues that cause the instability in the first place.

Proposition 2 would double the amount of money California can hold in its General Fund Reserve, from 10% to 20% of annual state revenue. 

Supporters argue that a larger reserve would make it easier to protect public services during recessions and economic downturns. With a smaller reserve, they say, the state could run out of funding during emergencies and face pressure to cut services or raise taxes.

The measure has drawn little organized campaigning from either side. Governor Gavin Newsom and the California Democratic Party support it, while conservative group Reform California and several Republican lawmakers oppose it.

From a socialist perspective, Proposition 2 is primarily about how the state manages its finances rather than directly improving people’s material conditions. At the local level, progressive advocates have fought back against needlessly letting public funds sit in reserves rather than go to work on our streets, but at the state level, the impacts are much fuzzier. A larger reserve could help protect social services during economic downturns, but it does not address the underlying inequality that leaves working people vulnerable in the first place.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: No Recommendation

Proposition 3

Turns a temporary tax increase on California’s millionaires into a permanent one, protecting key funding for California’s social safety net.

Proposition 3 would make permanent the higher income tax rates that voters approved in 2012 which is set to expire in 2031. The tax is expected to continue to bring in roughly $10 billion per year which funds schools, community colleges, and other state safety net programs.

California has more millionaires than any other state and in an age where billionaires have increasingly become the focus of anger around income inequality, environmental catastrophe, and political corruption, it’s often overlooked that there exists a large and growing population of millionaires who make up the vast majority of the state’s business-owning class. This tax makes up just 2% of California’s tax revenue, while generating billions of dollars that help fund public services and education.

From a socialist perspective, Proposition 3 takes a band-aid that was applied to our state’s dysfunctional economy, and makes it permanent. This is a limited form of redistribution within a deeply unequal economic system, but that makes sense; under our current political and economic system, it’s never going to be possible to meaningfully fix the underlying problems that direct all of our wealth to car dealers, real estate managers, and regional fast food franchise owners instead of directly to the people who need it, and who created it in the first place. Socialism is the only system that can pull these problems up by the roots; until then, ballot measures like this can only trim the branches.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote Yes on 3

Proposition 4

Allows public financing of elections statewide to make it easier for grassroots campaigns to challenge the establishment.

Proposition 4 would allow public financing of elections statewide. Public financing means using government funds to help candidates run their campaigns, reducing their reliance on large, private donors. This represents a small step towards building A Real Democracy. If passed, the measure would repeal a 1988 ban and allow state and local governments to create public financing programs for elections. Charter cities like San Francisco were already excluded from the ban, but Prop 4 would open the door for other cities to establish similar programs.

The measure is a step toward campaign finance reform by allowing candidates who rely primarily on small donors to access public funds and compete with candidates backed by large donors. However, Prop 4 does not establish how these programs would be funded. Each government would have to create its own program and determine how progressive or regressive its funding structure is.

DSA SF believes serious election reform is necessary to reduce the influence of money in politics and build a government accountable to the people. Prop 4 does not accomplish that on its own, but it creates an opportunity for grassroots candidates to access public funding and build campaigns without relying as heavily on wealthy donors.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote Yes on 4

Proposition 5

Changes how statewide recalls work by preventing a successor from being elected on the same ballot as the recall, a structure that significantly increased the possibility of a right-wing governor during the recall attempt against Governor Newsom.

Proposition 5 would change how recalls of California state officials work. Currently, if the threshold is met for a recall attempt, a special election is held immediately and voters are asked 1) whether the official should be removed from office and, if they are removed, 2) who should replace them. Prop 5 would remove the second question. Instead, the office would be filled through the existing appointment process, which generally means a separate special election to decide who will replace the recalled official.

The support or opposition is largely split along party lines, with the Democratic Party and Democratic lawmakers supporting and Republican lawmakers and conservative groups opposing. Supporters argue that having the successor elected at the same time as a recall causes confusion at the ballot box: voters aren’t sure who to vote for if they don’t support a recall, allowing for a fringe candidate to have a real chance at winning. 

Part of the DSA’s platform is the strengthening and securing of democratic values (it’s why it’s in our name!). Our current electoral system, one that punishes independent political movements in favor of strengthening the two party system that is failing us, is one that needs significant changing. However, the broader question is what role recalls should play in a democratic system. 

Republicans attempted to use this tool to oust Governor Gavin Newsom in 2021 over COVID policies and sanctuary state laws, a recall that failed significantly but would have put Republican Larry Elder in the seat if it had been successful. 

Fringe, far right candidates like Elder shouldn’t have such easy access to our State government. This measure will help prevent a disaster like Elder, while we keep our eyes on preventing ongoing corporate Democrat disasters like Gavin Newsom.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote Yes on 5

Proposition 37

A measure that proposes to make it easier for “middle class” homebuyers to afford a home but more-than-likely just funds the private housing market.

Proposition 37 would create a second mortgage program for middle class homebuyers purchasing newly constructed homes. It would also authorize the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) to issue up to $25 billion in bonds to fund the program. A bond is essentially a loan to the government: the government borrows money upfront and repays it over time, with interest. For voters, the question is therefore not simply how much money a bond raises, but what the government uses that money for and whether the long-term public benefit justifies the cost of repayment. 

The basic idea is to use public loans to help middle income Californians purchase homes through the private housing market. As socialists, however, our concern is not just how to make it easier for people to afford homes, but also why housing is so expensive in the first place.  

Prop 37 subsidizes people to participate in an unaffordable private market rather than expanding public housing and other forms of permanently affordable housing. Housing is a basic necessity, and public resources should be used to provide it as such, rather than to further subsidize the private housing industry.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote No on 37

Proposition 38

Gives billions of dollars to medical research without assurance that these developments will make it affordably back into the hands of Californians.

Proposition 38 would authorize the issuance of $8.4 billion dollars in state bonds for immunology research, including research on cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s. In return for the funding, the measure requires that the treatments developed through this research would have to be sold to California patients at a 20% discount. However, the researchers, expected to be primarily the University of California, would still own the intellectual property of the drugs and treatments.

While other countries provide free healthcare to its citizens, in the United States we ask the voters to borrow money so that we can gamble on private and public labs to make for-profit drugs. Research for healthcare should be focused primarily on helping people rather than making a profit and all intellectual property produced with public finances should be owned by the public. 

Proposition 38 invests billions in potentially important research, but does so through a model that forces us to bear the cost while getting a fraction of the benefits.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote No on 38

Proposition 39

An attempt by conservatives to make it more difficult for the most marginalized California voters to vote by requiring physical ID be presented at polling places.

Proposition 39 would require the presentation of a physical ID at polling location or the inclusion of a drivers license number on mail-in ballots. It will not make elections more secure; it will only make it harder to vote in them. DSA fights for a Democracy for All and opposes efforts to disenfranchise working people.

The Republican Party has been using the boogeyman of “voter fraud” since Trump’s defeat in 2020 and the attack on the US Capital on January 6th. Countless studies have been done on voter integrity in the United States and all have come to the same conclusion: there are very few attempts at fraud by individuals, a majority of them are caught, and none would come close to changing the outcome of an election.

The repeated discussion of voter fraud is a thin veil over the true intention: ending American democracy. They hope to keep communities that don’t have physical IDs out of the voting booth: lower-income working class folks and Black and Brown folks.

DSA SF believes we need to significantly alter our democratic process to make it far more representative of the will of the people. But at the minimum, we will fight to defend the system we have from attack. Do not allow Republican lawmakers to destroy our democracy. Vote no to protect it.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote No on 39

Proposition 40

A one-time tax on billionaires that would fund a wide range of social services using just a small portion of the wealth billionaires have stolen from Californian working people.

Proposition 40, known as “The Billionaire Tax,” is a first-of-its-kind wealth tax that aims to redistribute money from California billionaires to vital social programs. A “yes” on Prop 40 would levy a one-time 5% tax on taxpayers with wealth over $1 billion to fund state healthcare programs, food assistance, and public education. This one-time tax represents a small step towards the principles of Economic Democracy and a better world where wealth is used for common benefit.

The revenue collected from the tax, anticipated to be in the tens of billions, would fund MediCal and other low-income health coverage programs, K-14 public education, and food assistance programs like CalFresh. 

Prop 40 has many supporters: Ro Khanna, Bernie Sanders, California DSA, AFSCME, and Teamsters California. SEIU-United Healthcare Workers has been a huge champion of this ballot measure, spending nearly $34.5 million on this campaign to ensure proper funding for the hospitals and clinics the unions support. Even the California Democratic Party narrowly voted to endorse Prop 40 in early August 2026. Prop 40 also has a long opposition list including Peter Thiel, Chris Larsen, California YIMBY, Planned Parenthood, Gavin Newsom, the SF Democratic Party, and Mayor Daniel Lurie.

Prop 40 comes at a time when American wealth disparity is at an all-time high and social programs like public healthcare and public education are rapidly losing critical public funds due to Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” Prop 40 presents itself as a necessary measure to address extreme wealth inequality and provide a lifeline to these critical social programs.

However, DSA SF knows that a one-time 5% wealth tax isn’t good enough. The ultra-wealthy are spending hundreds of millions just to oppose this one tax, but it is imperative that we continue fighting to redistribute the obscene wealth concentrated in the hands of a few individuals at the expense of everyone else. To build a society that meets the needs of the many rather than just caters to the whims of a few, come join DSA SF.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote Yes on 40

Proposition 41

An attempt by moneyed interests to stop Proposition 40, the Billionaire Tax, by burdening tax measures with new pre-election audits.

Proposition 41 would require pre-election audits for tax-related ballot initiatives, require special taxes to undergo regular audits, and prohibit state taxes from exceeding a state spending limit. A “special tax” is a tax that can only be used to fund specific purposes, such as Prop 40’s billionaire tax which would specifically fund healthcare, food assistance, and public education.

This ballot measure, alongside Proposition 42, was designed in opposition to Proposition 40, the Billionaire Tax. If Proposition 41 receives more yes votes than Proposition 40, Proposition 40 could be prevented from taking effect if a court determines that the two measures conflict.

California’s ultra-wealthy, billionaire tech CEOs, and venture capitalists, oppose Prop 40 and rather than accepting meager amounts of wealth redistribution to support California, they have dedicated significant resources to opposing Prop 40, both through campaigning and the creation of two opposing propositions.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote No on 41

Proposition 42

A second attempt by the capitalist class to stop Proposition 40, the Billionaire Tax, by prohibiting certain new taxes from being created and retroactively limiting existing taxes.

Proposition 42 would amend the California Constitution to prohibit new state taxes on retirement accounts, individual assets, or personal savings, as well as retroactively limiting existing taxes.

Prop 42, alongside Proposition 41, was designed in opposition to Proposition 40, The Billionaire Tax, as a “poison pill” that could kill the Billionaire tax. If Prop 42 receives more yes votes than Prop 40, Prop 40 could be blocked from taking effect if a court finds the measures conflict. Even if Prop 40 takes effect, Prop 42 would restrict the state’s ability to impose similar taxes on financial assets in the future.

A “yes” on Proposition 42 will not protect your retirement account. It will just further protect California’s billionaires and allow for the further deterioration of our vital social services.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote No on 42

Proposition 43

An attempt to raise the threshold to pass new special taxes from a simple majority to two-thirds, severely hurting the ability to pass measures like DSA SF’s Proposition I in the future.

Proposition 43 would raise the threshold of passage for voter-initiated local taxes from a simple majority to a two-thirds. Special taxes are taxes dedicated to a specific purpose, such as funding housing, transit, or healthcare. Under current law, local governments already need two-thirds approval for special taxes they place on the ballot, but recent court decisions have allowed voter-initiated special taxes to pass with a majority. 

This would have direct implications for San Francisco, where some of our most impactful programs have been funded through voter-initiated special taxes, including the 2018 universal childcare measure and the 2018 homelessness tax on large businesses that funds housing and homelessness services. 

The class conflict is clear: the measure is backed by a statewide coalition that includes real estate and business interests, while the taxes affected by the higher threshold are among the tools local governments use to fund public services.

If Prop 43 passes, it could make it harder to secure material gains through local ballot measures by making new dedicated revenue sources more difficult to pass. Municipal taxation alone cannot achieve socialism, but local revenue remains an important tool for winning concrete improvements in people’s lives.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote No on 43

Proposition 44

A complicated issue around how much local healthcare clinics must spend directly on care that pits organized labor against healthcare advocates.

Proposition 44 would require non-profit health centers to spend at least 90% of their annual revenue on patient care and program services.

The measure is primarily being pushed by SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, a healthcare worker union representing over 120,000 healthcare workers and allies. They claim Prop 44 will ensure more clinic revenue flows to patient services, rather than clinic executive salaries.

Prop 44 also cannot be discussed without the context of 2024’s California Prop 34, a measure that also applied a higher required patient care spending rate. However, the bill was written to only target the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a group that both provided care and did positive political advocacy around rent control and affordable housing. The increase in care spending slashed their advocacy budget, revealing the true purpose behind the millions of dollars spent by real estate interests.

The result is a very complicated situation for socialists. On one hand, you have organized labor pushing for money to be moved away from executive salaries. On the other hand, you have a mechanism that has been used to punish positive political advocacy in the past being applied again in a way that many groups claim will hurt our public healthcare infrastructure. Given the competing interests at play, we do not have a recommendation on Prop 44.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: No Recommendation

Proposition 45

A measure to slash environmental reviews on new development projects that will benefit building developers and real estate interests far more than housing advocates.

Proposition 45 would make a number of changes to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to speed up environmental review for housing, transportation, clean energy, education, and health-related projects. 

This measure is funded by a variety of real estate and business interests, including the California Building Industry Association, California Chamber of Commerce, California Association of Realtors, and Prologis (Amazon’s primary landlord). The proponents point to examples of NIMBYs utilizing CEQA to delay projects over noise and aesthetics, which subsequently leads to higher costs and less projects “penciling out.” Opponents say that Prop 45 would weaken the ability for communities to have input on polluting projects, allowing wealthy corporations to pass environmental costs onto communities and working people. 

It is clear why organized business and real estate would put this on the ballot: they are utilizing real fears about rising housing costs to launder another environmental deregulation measure that would pad corporate profits. We are seeing communities across the country and across California come together to fight against AI data centers, which are the physical embodiment of putting profit over human need. Studies show that these resource-guzzling facilities spike local energy costs, worsen air quality, and are disproportionately found in marginalized communities. 

This measure would weaken the working class’s ability to fight against corporate greed in their communities, like data centers. As socialists, we know that CEQA, Prop 45, or any other law will not be sufficient. We believe in democratic control of our communities and a worker-led transition to a green future. This does not mean we freeze our communities in amber, but that we fight for a city where growth and changes benefit working people, rather than just than the 1%.

DSA SF’s Recommendation: Vote No on 45