Watch the San Francisco Mayoral Debate Live With KQED

[Update: San Francisco mayoral candidates clashed on Sept. 19 as Breed Faces Attacks from Farrell, Lurie.]

San Francisco’s mayoral race is heating up as candidates mount attacks against their opponents and make their case for why their blueprint for the city’s future is the winning one. On Thursday evening beginning at 7:00 p.m., voters will have a chance to hear from all five major candidates at a debate presented by KQED and the San Francisco Chronicle.

The high-profile election comes as San Francisco has drawn increased national attention, partly due to Vice President Kamala Harris — who began her political career in the city — rising to the top of the Democratic ticket in the presidential race.

Tonight, the five leading mayoral hopefuls will go head-to-head on issues around homelessness, crime and safety, economic recovery and more. Here’s what to watch out for:

Housing and homelessness

San Francisco’s next mayor will need to pave the way for creating tens of thousands of housing units to meet state mandates, as well as find ways to more effectively help people experiencing homelessness get and stay housed.

Mayor London Breed has cemented herself as the pro-housing candidate, advocating for new housing at all income levels across the city and earning an endorsement from the YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) Action group. But she’s also faced criticism over the city’s sluggishness to build more affordable units and open up enough shelters so more people can exit homelessness and find permanent housing.

Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie, who has positioned himself as the City Hall outsider in the race, points to projects he led as the founder of the anti-poverty nonprofit Tipping Point as evidence of his ability to quickly build affordable housing in San Francisco. Skeptics, however, question whether his nonprofit experience will effectively translate to navigating government bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, progressive Supervisor Aaron Peskin has taken heat for previously blocking some housing projects, though he has shown support for new affordable development in conjunction with stronger renter protections. Recently, Peskin proposed dramatically expanding rent control protections to all buildings across San Francisco.

Crime and safety

It’s a top priority for all of the candidates – and a notable shift from 2020 when city officials, including Breed herself, supported calls for defunding the police.

Today, Breed is touting the work she has done to increase police funding, making technology like drones available to law enforcement, and recent improvements in reported crime statistics.

Meanwhile, former supervisor and interim Mayor Mark Farrell has said he will fully support building up the police force and wants to bring in the National Guard to enforce drug and anti-camping laws.

Peskin, Lurie and Supervisor Ahsha Safaí have all said they want to fully staff the police department and increase the ranks of officers who can speak multiple languages. However, these candidates have also made root causes of crime like poverty, housing and education a focus of their public safety rhetoric.

As their proposals rolled out, the recent shooting of San Francisco 49ers rookie Ricky Pearsall in Union Square reignited debates over public safety downtown. Pearsall survived the shooting and was quickly released from the hospital. But Farrell, who has positioned himself to the right of Breed, took the opportunity to criticize the incumbent.

“Enough is enough,” Farrell posted on social media after the shooting. “If we want public safety in San Francisco, then we need change in City Hall.”

Breed and other mayoral candidates called Farrell’s response a crass example of political opportunism. In an op-ed for the San Francisco Examiner, former Mayor Willie Brown said Farrell’s comments were “pretty unhinged” and harped on Farrell for “expressing neither remorse for the victim of a shooting nor appreciation for the police officers who made the arrest.”

Lurie and Peskin expressed concern for Pearsall and broader issues of gun violence in their responses — reactions that Brown said “passed” his leadership test.

Ethics and personal backgrounds

This race has not been without its fair share of controversy.

Breed has come under fire again over reports of potentially improper spending at City Hall. The city attorney is investigating grants and contracts awarded by Sheryl Davis, who resigned as director of the Human Rights Commission after the reports were published. Davis’ office was in charge of administering Breed’s Dream Keeper Initiative, a program designed to provide better housing, work training and other equitable opportunities for Black San Franciscans.

That’s on top of other examples, including the July arrest of Kyra Worthy, the former leader of the nonprofit SF SAFE, who faces 34 felony charges over accusations that she misused public funds and donations intended for crime-prevention programs. That followed one of the city’s largest corruption scandals, an FBI investigation targeting bribery and fraud at City Hall that has led to multiple convictions of former city officials.

Other candidates are on the defensive about their records, too. Farrell has come under increased scrutiny for ties to a ballot initiative, Proposition D, that has raised millions of dollars largely from Silicon Valley billionaires and conservative donors. His opponents allege that he is misusing campaign funds directed at the ballot measure and blurring the lines between it and his own mayoral campaign, including by appearing prominently in ads for the measure.

As a supervisor, Farrell was hit with the city’s largest campaign finance violation fine of $191,000, stemming from his 2010 run for supervisor when his then-opponent Janet Reilly alleged that Farrell’s campaign illegally coordinated with an independent expenditure committee. Farrell later settled for $25,000 and the Fair Political Practices Commission exonerated him.

Peskin has also had to clear up past flops while on the campaign trail, like apologizing to the firefighters union at their recent debate for berating the first responders for their handling of a blaze in his district in 2018. Fire Department members alleged that Peskin was intoxicated during the incident, which Peskin denied. After additional complaints about his behavior, the Board of Supervisors president started treatment in 2021 and has been sober from alcohol for three years.

“I know we have real challenges, but I want to make things better, and that’s the experience that I’m living now,” Peskin recently told KQED.

Who’s leading the race?

With about six weeks remaining until election day, no clear frontrunner has emerged. Political consultant Jim Ross describes the race as “still a toss-up” but suggests that this could change as November gets closer.

“Even if voters are saying, ‘I’m supporting Breed or Farrell or Peskin,’ I think they are still open to change or looking for a candidate who will grab hold of their imagination,” Ross said. “At this point, most of the campaigns have been waiting for the election to get closer to make their strongest arguments and spend most of their money.”

One of the latest polls in the mayor’s race, released Tuesday from KRON4 and Emerson College Polling, found Farrell just slightly ahead with 20.6% of voters’ first-choice picks, followed closely by Breed with 20.3%. But Lurie rises to the top with 21% of voters’ second-choice picks, giving him a pathway to victory via the city’s ranked-choice voting system.

Meanwhile, the poll showed Peskin with about 9% of first-choice votes. Progressives are ramping up their messaging to voters around affordability and inclusivity to stay in the fight.

Still, about 27% of voters in the poll, which has a 3.5% margin of error, said they are still undecided.

“Once these debates start to get into full swing, voters can really focus,” Ross said. “But the election is up for grabs at this point still.”

Catch up on all our coverage of the San Francisco mayor’s race, which includes interviews with all the leading candidates: Ahsha Safaí, Mark Farrell, Daniel Lurie, Aaron Peskin, and stay tuned for our interview with London Breed next month.