Members of the San Francisco Republican Party and supporters of President Donald Trump cheer after listening to Trump deliver the inaugural speech during an inauguration watch party at Harry’s Bar in San Francisco on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Spirits were high in Harry’s Bar in Pacific Heights on Monday, as San Francisco Republicans cheered on the second inauguration of President Donald J. Trump.
“At the risk of sounding horribly sentimental, I’m proud to be an American citizen,” Kathleen McCrea, a party attendee, told KQED. “I’m hopeful for what Donald Trump just described in his inaugural address: a restoration of law and order and a reversal of some of the disastrous policies that have really threatened to send this country down a sinkhole.”
Nearly 100 people packed into the bar just after 8:00 a.m. to watch the inauguration over a breakfast buffet, coffee and some cocktails. The crowd ranged from “pretty hardcore MAGA folks,” decked out in Trump’s signature red MAGA hat, to political moderates, said Bill Jackson, chairman of the San Francisco Republican Party.
“We’re all here to celebrate the new possibilities of this administration — the opportunities for accelerating our economic growth, for protecting our borders and for a more open kind of free speech and culture,” Jackson said.
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With just over 60,000 votes going to Trump and his vice president JD Vance in San Francisco — or just under 16% of all votes cast — Republicans are still in the minority in the city. But this turnout was still higher than the number of votes Trump won in San Francisco in 2020, demonstrating the President’s growing popularity — as well as slightly less engagement overall with the Democratic party.
The rightward shift was “slight,” said Josh Wolff, “but we’ll take anything here.”
Josh Wolff cheers while watching the inauguration ceremony for President Donald Trump on TV at Harry’s Bar in San Francisco on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, surrounded by fellow supporters. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
Wolff, 26, said he moved to California from Florida seven years ago. Compared to his home state, he found the tax rate and cost of living in California to be much higher, with what he calls low overall returns in government services. This year, Wolff was elected to the Republican Party County Central Committee in San Francisco, where he plans to tackle local issues, according to his website. One issue at the top of mind is public safety.
Wolff described moving to the Bay Area to attend school and having many of his belongings stolen from his parked car in broad daylight “as a welcome gift.”
“It was treated as a routine incident,” he said. “If you look around many parking lots, there are signs [posted] that blame the victim. It’s this kind of a mentality where the people who abide by the law — who pay the taxes — are the ones at fault.”
While some attendees were lifelong Republicans, others said that their interest in Trump’s firebrand politics stemmed from a gradual political evolution.
Carly Matthews (left) and Philip Wing (center) listen to the national anthem being sung by Christopher Macchio during a watch party at Harry’s Bar in San Francisco on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, for the inauguration ceremony for President Donald Trump. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
“I never thought I would be at an event like this in my life,” said Carly Matthews. “I moved from the left to the right in a span of 18 months, and I got my citizenship so that I could vote in this election.”
Matthews said reckless government spending and disrespect to law enforcement disturbed her, so she made an account on X — the once San Francisco-based social media platform formerly known as Twitter that Elon Musk bought and rebranded — and started watching full-length interviews with Donald Trump.
“I call it ‘getting X-ucated,’” Matthews joked.
Matthews was born in Canada. After her own 10-year journey to become a U.S. citizen, she describes herself as “very pro-immigration.”
“This is a wonderful melting pot. That’s what I love about San Francisco,” Matthews said. “But when you’re crossing over the border illegally, and if you want to do harm to our citizens, that’s not good. If someone is willing to work hard and contribute to society, then yes, I support immigration.”
A lifelong independent voter, McCrea said she experienced a similar shift in her own thinking about Trump, from skepticism to “gratitude and relief” while watching his second inauguration.
McCrea now identifies as a conservative, and as part of that, said she’s faced a bit of hostility for her beliefs. “I’m used to it now,” she said.
In a liberal city like San Francisco, McCrea knows that many people who supported former Vice President Kamala Harris in the election or who are concerned that Trump’s immigration policies are worried or angry that Trump’s second term may lead to an even more troubling era for the United States. She offered them a piece of advice: take the long view.
“Realize that the pendulum swings,” McCrea said. “This is civics. This is how it works in the United States. It goes back.”
“We don’t need to be divided about this,” McCrea continued. “We can have an honest difference of opinion and still be friends.”