Members of the Chinese community have high hopes for Mayor-Elect Daniel Lurie

SAN FRANCISCO — The November 5 election results have shown that Chinese and Asian voters in San Francisco predominantly voted for political outsider Daniel Lurie as next mayor over former or current elected officials.

As a community being long overlooked and unfairly treated by all levels of government agencies for over a century, leaders of the Chinese American community have high hopes on Mayor-Elect Lurie to do more for the Asian community, in particular on public safety and economy, once he takes office on January 8, 2025.

Prior to the first outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, members of the Asian and Chinese community, particularly the seniors, have been victims of hate and violent crime in San Francisco. A number of elderly victims died in related incidents including 63-year-old Yanfang Wu who was pushed to death by 42-year-old African American Thea Hopkins in the Bayview neighborhood in the evening of July 3, 2023 when she just got off the bus after work walking home on Third Street.

Hopkins was first detained by police officers and released immediately after she was questioned by police homicide inspectors while a prosecutor from the District Attorney's Office was present during the interview. Both the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) and District Attorney's Office believed the argument from Hopkins that she was running to catch a bus when she tripped on the sidewalk and fell on Wu that caused Wu to fall to the sidewalk and die. Both the SFPD and District Attorney’s Office trusted Hopkins and closed the case. However, the Chinese community insisted it was a hate-related murder case.

Eight months later on March 4, 2024, a 71-year-old monolingual Chinese immigrant woman was assaulted unprovoked from behind when she was on her way to a park for a morning exercise walking on the 1000 block of Gilman Avenue in Bayview. The suspect in the second attack was also Hopkins.

Two incidents triggered the Asian Justice Movement, which was founded in the midst of the pandemic in 2021 in response to anti-Asian hate incidents, demanded the Police Department to reopen the investigation and release the video related to Wu's death. As of today, no updates on the investigation nor any videos have been provided by either agency.

"Our community has faced the challenges of hate and violence for many years. We have many victims of crime from our community. Not only a new mayor, San Francisco also needs a new police chief who understands our city and the Chinese and Asian community well. We have made up almost 40% of the City's population," said Robert Chiang, Presiding President of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) and longtime Board Member of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

"We have hoped for a qualified police chief to protect our community, of course we would like to see a qualified Chinese American to be the next police chief," Chiang added. "We also need representation at all levels of city agencies. Not only the SFPD, currently city agencies and commissions lack Asian representations as well as services for the Asian communities. We have high expectations for our next mayor (Lurie)."

Ding Lee, a supporter of Lurie during the campaign days and leader of the family associations in San Francisco Chinatown, hoped for Lurie to have more concrete plans to promote the businesses in Chinatown which is the oldest Chinatown in the nation.

"Chinatown is the second most popular tourist attraction in San Francisco," said Lee. "The City should initiate more incentives and programs to bring in more tourists to visit Chinatown and introduce the profound history and culture of our Chinatown to visitors. However the City has failed to do so under current and past political leaders."

Lee remembers in the 1970s and 1980s the restaurants and shops in Chinatown opened until late night and even early morning. In recent years, businesses have closed earlier and earlier from 7pm to 6pm and now even some at 5pm due to an extreme economic slowdown in Chinatown.

Elaine Chiu, owner of Grant Place Restaurant on Washington Street in Chinatown, echoed that the economy in Chinatown has been badly hurt by crime and homelessness in recent years. Chiu, who supported Lurie's candidacy in the beginning of his campaign, has high expectations for Lurie to do more to promote Chinatown businesses than the current city administration.

"I started to operate my restaurant business in Chinatown in 1992. I have never seen my business as bad as it is now in over 30 years. Homelessness and crime have deterred customers away from Chinatown," said Chiu. "As an entrepreneur himself and heir to his family's successful global business Levi Strauss Corporation, Daniel Lurie has given me hope that he would turn around the economy in Chinatown."

Chiu hoped for Lurie to take real actions and create policy measures stimulating the economy in Chinatown and across the city to support all small businesses as a whole to bring back the thriving days of San Francisco.

Asian Americans have been the swing votes in San Francisco elections for all city races for decades due to the growing population which is now made up of over 37%.

Prior to the November election, top four mayoral candidates, Lurie, Mayor London Breed, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin and former Interim Mayor Mark Farrell, all worked hard in trying to get more support from Asian voters as a way to win the seat.

The election results have proved that the overwhelming majority of votes in Asian neighborhoods pushed Lurie to the top since the first round of vote counts when the results were released by the Department of Elections on election night.

The latest results have shown that Lurie won the mayoral race with a 10-point wide margin over Breed, who was seeking re-election, at 55% to 45% after 14 rounds of counts under the ranked-choice system. Lurie led in first-choice, second-choice and third-choice votes from other candidates.

Top six candidates ranked with most votes in first-choice voting were Lurie (26.33%), Breed (24.38%), Peskin (22.87%), Farrell (18.48%), D11 Supervisor Ahsha Safai (2.93%) and Republican candidate Ellen Lee Zhou (2.22%).

Three-time and the only Republican mayoral candidate Zhou received a total of 10,083 votes in the contest. She asked her supporters to vote for any other mayoral candidates but Breed under the ranked-choice voting.

The election results indicate that 2,290 votes from Zhou were transferred to Lurie, 2,287 votes to Farrell, 1,208 to Peskin, 1,061 to Safai, 854 votes to Breed.

In the first-choice votes under the ranked-choice system, Lurie was able to receive the majority of votes in Sunset District, Parkside, Saint Francis Wood, Ingleside Terraces, Balboa Terrace, Outer Richmond, Nob Hill, Noe Valley, Diamond Heights, South of Market, Portola, and Pacific Heights where Lurie resides.

In addition to Asian votes, voters from neighborhoods with significant LGBTQ population, Castro District, Noe Valley and Diamond Heights, could be seen as strong supporters of Lurie.

Breed received her most votes from Bayview/Hunters Point, Fillmore District, Western Addition, and Treasure island.

Peskin's largest support was voters from the Mission District and Haight-Ashbury. Peskin was able to gain most votes from Chinatown and Telegraph Hill where he has represented as Supervisor for 16 years.

The biggest support for Farrell was from his own neighborhood, Marina District.

Many Chinese American voters shared with similar thoughts that they have been frustrated with the poor performances of city leaders and elected officials who have not done much on Anti-Asian hate, crime, public safety, and economy. They wanted a change and voted for City Hall Outsider Lurie who made a historic victory as the first City Hall outsider elected as mayor in 100 years in San Francisco.