The race for San Francisco’s district attorney was too close to call as of early Wednesday morning, with Suzy Loftus and Chesa Boudin separated by just 240 votes, according to the latest results released by the city’s elections department.
In the latest update posted after midnight, Boudin had more than 2,000 raw votes than Loftus, but after multiple rounds of ranked-choice voting that eliminated candidates Nancy Tung and Leif Dautch, Loftus had 47,234 votes to 46,994 for Boudin, a 50.13 to 49.87 percent margin.
The road leading up to Tuesday’s election, the first district attorney race in the city in more than 100 years with no incumbent candidate running, was a bumpy one.
Just last month, Mayor London Breed appointed Loftus to be interim district attorney to replace George Gascon, who just weeks earlier abruptly announced he would resign in order to run in the race for Los Angeles district attorney.
Breed faced criticism for the decision, with some community groups and city leaders accusing Breed of trying to tilt the election to Loftus, a former prosecutor and former president of the San Francisco Police Commission. The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California called Breed’s appointment of Loftus “fundamentally undemocratic.”
In another turn of events, on Monday city leaders accused the San Francisco Police Officers Association of trying to buy the race by allegedly spending as much as $650,000 on ads attacking Boudin, a deputy public defender.
The ads alleged that Boudin won’t prosecute DUI offenders and won’t seek additional penalties for gang members who have committed violent crimes like rape and murder. One ad read, “Chesa Boudin: the #1 choice of criminals and gang members!”
Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer called the ads “appalling,” while Supervisor Hillary Ronen accused the POA of “trying to confuse and trick voters.”
In response, the POA’s President Tony Montoya called Boudin “inexperienced” and said the POA stood by the ads.
In the city’s race for mayor, Tuesday’s early election results show incumbent Mayor London Breed has been re-elected with more than 69 percent of the vote.
Although Breed won the mayoral election last year following the sudden death of Mayor Ed Lee, she was elected only to serve until the end of Lee’s term. When certified as the winner this time, Breed will begin serving her first full term as mayor on Jan. 1, 2020.
Other mayoral candidates include Ellen Lee Zhou, who received more than 16 percent, and Joel Ventresca, who garnered more than 8 percent, preliminary results showed.
Similar to the district attorney’s race, the District 5 supervisor race also remains too close to call, with candidate Dean Preston ahead by just 218 votes over Supervisor Vallie Brown after rounds of ranked-choice voting.
Preston has 6,439 votes compared to 6,221 for Brown. Candidates Ryan Lam and Nomvula O’Meara have been eliminated.
Brown was appointed by Breed last year to complete the rest of Breed’s term as District 5 supervisor after she became mayor.
The city elections department is expected to release its next update on the various races on 4 p.m. Wednesday after continuing to count ballots.