Moderate Democrats in San Francisco are stocking up for what they’re calling an oncoming progressive “wave” — and they’ve got $10 million in the bank to prove it.
Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, the well-funded group that helped power the city’s centrist shift over the past five years, says it’s ready to spend big this election cycle to stop progressives from reclaiming City Hall and to defeat a proposed “CEO tax” on the June ballot.
“This is a wave that is coming to us, it’s coming westward,” said Jay Cheng, the group’s director. “You can feel that pendulum swing, and it is important that someone is holding the line,” in an article with Politico.
Holding the line from what? Slightly higher taxes on corporations with extremely well-paid executives? Two more progressive supervisors? A school board that thinks teachers should exist?
To understand the anxiety, rewind to the pandemic era. San Francisco politics tilted left: a progressive majority on the Board of Supervisors, one of the country’s most liberal district attorneys in Chesa Boudin, and a county Democratic Party aligned with the national Defund the Police movement.
Then came the backlash. Starting in 2022, voters recalled Boudin, ousted progressive school board leaders, and eventually shifted the county party. A moderate majority took shape at City Hall. Daniel Lurie, heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, became mayor. The political pendulum swung hard.
Now moderates are worried it might swing back.
Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, who leads the chamber’s centrist majority, put it bluntly: “It’s hard in a place like this for the center to hold.” He added, “We have pragmatists and utopians.”
Translation: the utopians might be organizing.
Progressives have seized on the optics of wealthy donors pouring millions into local races, comparing the influence of San Francisco’s centrist money network to national conservative megadonors. They toss around phrases like “astroturf network,” “oligarchs” and “right-wing billionaires” to describe Neighbors for a Better SF and its backers, which include tech executives, real estate investors, billionaire Bill Oberndorf, venture capitalist Steven Merrill, and companies like Uber.
Cheng, for his part, insists the effort isn’t just about blocking the left but about keeping pressure on moderates too. He warned against “complacency,” arguing that’s what could drag the city back to its pandemic low point, when overdose deaths, property crime and homelessness spiked.
“We’re at the beginning of that curve,” Cheng said. “Progressive energy and a sense of complacency on the moderate side, those are very dangerous.”
Dangerous… like a ballot measure asking CEOs to chip in a little more?
The group plans to spend:
• $1 million to defeat the proposed CEO tax, which would raise corporate taxes based on executive compensation to offset federal funding cuts.
• Up to $5 million to preserve the Board’s 7–4 moderate majority.
• $1 million to maintain a moderate school board majority.
• $2 million through its sister organization, Blueprint SF, on voter education campaigns, including messaging about the city’s structural budget deficit.
In a city one-tenth the size of New York, $10 million isn’t pocket change. It’s a full-scale political flotation device.
The funny part? If moderates need a war chest that big to stop progressives from winning two seats and modestly taxing corporations, maybe that “wave” isn’t some fringe ripple. Maybe it’s just voters looking around at the cost of living, empty downtown offices, and widening inequality and deciding the billionaires can spare a little more.
If that’s the tide rolling in, no wonder someone’s “holding the line.”
