Daniel Lurie Jumps Into San Francisco Mayor's Race Against London Breed

Philanthropist Daniel Lurie, who founded the anti-poverty organization Tipping Point Community, announced Tuesday that he will run for mayor of San Francisco, challenging incumbent London Breed in next year’s election at a time of widespread dissatisfaction with city government.

“I fundamentally believe we are facing a crisis in leadership and the direction that we’re headed is deeply concerning to me,” Lurie told KQED. “I really believe that if we continue in this direction, that my children will not love San Francisco the way that I always have.”

The 46-year-old, who was born and raised in San Francisco, is heir to the Levi Strauss fortune through his mother, Mimi Haas. He says his top priority as mayor would be public safety, adding that open drug dealing and property crimes in parts of the city creates the feeling that “there are no rules — there is this sense of disorder and chaos that we are all feeling.”

The way Lurie sees it, Mayor Breed has failed to lead a concerted, organized effort against crime.

“We have a serious lack of coordination across the criminal justice system,” he said. “We have department heads who are off doing whatever it is that they want and they’re siloed.”

His pledge to hold weekly department head meetings in the mayor’s office is unlikely to ignite a groundswell of support for Lurie’s candidacy. But his campaign is hoping that given widespread discontent with city government, Lurie will appeal to voters who simply want better results on key problems facing San Francisco.

“If there is a lane that is more about effectiveness and good government, that’s his lane,” said Lurie’s pollster David Binder.

Lurie has a long way to go in raising his name ID among voters, but he’ll have time before the November 2024 election. Binder thinks Lurie’s work with Tipping Point — addressing poverty, education and homelessness, among other things — will get voters’ attention.

“It provides an opportunity for someone like Daniel really coming from the outside, not being an elected official to take an interest in curiosity among the voters,” Binder said. 

Binder said Lurie will try to avoid defining himself as progressive or moderate, but he might find that difficult in the world of San Francisco politics.

In an interview with KQED, for example, Lurie said he supported the recall of three San Francisco School Board members in 2022. But when asked whether he supported the recall of ousted District Attorney Chesa Boudin, Lurie pivoted to say he supported Suzy Loftus — Breed’s appointee to the position — whom Boudin narrowly defeated when she faced voters.

Pressed on his position, Lurie said he did vote to recall Boudin, adding that while he supports criminal justice reform “I think how [Boudin] went about [running the DA’s office] was kind of blowing up the system and not having a plan in place to fill that system.”

On dealing with the city’s large unhoused population, an issue that has vexed San Francisco mayors since the 1980s, Lurie offered few specifics or new ideas, saying it was important to create more shelter beds and hold organizations funded by the city accountable for better results.

Lurie will have plenty of time to sharpen his positions and ideas — the election is more than a year away — and present himself as someone willing to shake up the status quo.

“I’m going to be able to look at these issues and solutions with a fresh perspective. And I will not be beholden to interests that are holding our city back,” Lurie said.

But Maggie Muir, who is managing Breed’s reelection campaign, says a political outsider like Lurie will have to convince voters he’s up to the challenge of managing a city like San Francisco with its $14 billion budget and byzantine bureaucracy.

“I think the issue with a candidate like Daniel Lurie, who may have great intentions and be a real nice guy, is he essentially has no experience, or the level of experience needed to make progress on the challenges that are facing the city,” Muir said. “He’s never had to address and resolve issues at this level of seriousness and complexity.”

But Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, founder of the Bayview Child Health Center in San Francisco, noted that Lurie’s Tipping Point foundation was an early supporter of that effort and the Center for Youth Wellness, an organization she started later. Harris said Lurie not only helped fund programs addressing hardships the city faces, but also demanded accountability and results.

Harris said Lurie would be “a fantastic mayor.”

“He cares deeply, deeply, deeply and passionately about the city of San Francisco and its people and its future,” Harris said.

Harris, a pediatrician and the former surgeon general of California, said Lurie has the skills to be an effective leader. “He’s smart. He knows how to get things done. He knows how to bring people together. And I think that he’s a good bridge,” Harris said.

Harris added that previously she supported Breed and voted for her, but while she “respects and admires her tremendously on a personal level, I think San Francisco needs new leadership.”

While Lurie has never before sought elected office, he’s been active for years in civic affairs. In 2013, he spearheaded the city’s successful effort to host the 50th Super Bowl. Then-Mayor Ed Lee then tapped him to chair the Bay Area Super Bowl 50 Host Committee, where he helped raise $13 million to invest in lower-income communities.

Lurie considered running for mayor in 2019 but ultimately chose not to because, he said, he knew London Breed and was inspired by her candidacy.

“I was really excited about the prospect of Mayor Breed. … to see a woman in charge, a woman leading our city. And I was very hopeful and that’s why I decided not to run,” Lurie said.

He says running against Breed now isn’t personal but rather that “this is about our city and people.”

Polls show city residents overwhelmingly believe San Francisco is “on the wrong track” and heading in the wrong direction, and Mayor Breed’s approval ratings are well below 50% — a warning sign for incumbents.

Veteran campaign consultant Eric Jaye, who has worked on numerous mayoral campaigns, including ones for Gavin Newsom and Willie Brown, is skeptical of Lurie’s candidacy and message, calling him “a lovely person who means well,” but doubts he has “the steely resolve to take on the corrupt administration, the corrupt and failing cartel that runs our city and create actual change.”

“He has no history of making hard decisions, of being willing to make enemies, of being willing to take on powerful forces from any corner,” Jaye said.

In addition to Lurie, San Francisco Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, who like Breed is relatively moderate, has also filed to run. More than a dozen other less well-known candidates are running as well.

San Francisco uses ranked choice voting to elect its mayor, and pollster Binder thinks that could help Lurie.

“I think that benefits him because he’s more likely to get the second and third choice votes from those who are picking someone else for first choice rather than the mayor,” Binder said.

While Breed is currently unpopular with voters, her positions on many key issues — for example taking a tougher approach to open-air fentanyl dealing and homeless encampments and increasing police department staffing — are in line with a significant segment of the population.

The question she’ll have to answer is whether or not she can present a vision for the city and convince voters she can deliver on it.