SF City Hall and money photos via Creative Commons.
If you thought the San Francisco moderates would be happy now that they’ve taken over the Board of Supervisors and and the Mayor’s office, you’d be wrong. Jay Cheng (yes, the controversial fellow who has been accused of attempted sexual assault and who the mayor refuses to work with) is pouring tons of money through astroturf group Neighbors for a Better SF into 2026 races.
Giphy
The group has told Politico Playbook, “it has raised $10 million to pour into San Francisco local races this year to prevent progressive candidates from regaining power at City Hall and defeat a looming ‘CEO tax.’” Ten million dollars is enough to buy a Banksy or get one of those ten passenger private jets.
So why spend it on San Francisco elections? After all, it’s not a presidential election year, so there are only a handful of Board of Supervisor seats. Oh, and a few Board of Education seats…
555 Franklin is a kind of stuffy concrete building where SFUSD does much of its governing. The Board of Education isn’t a fully paid or staffed position; the public comment can be brutal; the work (while important) is quite hard. How much could a seat in one of those $500 / month stipend board positions cost?
Apparently a million dollars.
Giphy
Jay Cheng and his ilk plan to spend as much keeping the never-elected Board of Ed member Phil Kim, who faced intense scrutiny for being missing in action during the strike, in his Breed-appointed chair. Who cares that much about a school board?
Playbook describes Neighbors for a Better SF’s role as one of “defending Phil Kim, a leader of the board’s centrist bloc, from a progressive challenger.” The unnamed challenger is Brandee Marckman. She’s got a few endorsements, but she’s already gained an enemy by the name of Meredith Dodson, another never-elected from the Breed era who runs a Facebook group and keeps ending up in the Chronicle as the voice of all parents here.
Why Neighbors for a Better SF cares so much is hard to say. They’ll also be pouring $2mil into Blueprint (an organization that made an entire Instagram video making fun of this author for crying over Kitkat, a cute little tabby that got run over by a Waymo around Dia de los Muertos). (Nope, not going to link the video. RIP Kitkat!)
It’ll be a fascinating election season, with plenty of people, issues, bonds, measures, and drama. Get the popcorn ready. The more money the billionaires pour into the race, the harder it’ll be to paint this as anything but the future of democracy in our little liberal city.
