Heir to Levi Strauss fortune accused of ‘buying race’ as he becomes new mayor of San Francisco
Daniel Lurie unseated incumbent mayor London Breed running on promises to revitalize city after challenges of pandemic era
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Your support makes all the difference.San Francisco mayor London Breed struck a civic tone when conceding the race to winner Daniel Lurie, writing on X, “I know we are both committed to improving this City we love.” A few days earlier, however, she made a considerably different point, accusing Lurie, an heir to the Levi Strauss denim fortune, of buying the election.
“It has been really one of the most sad and horrible things I’ve seen in politics in San Francisco, that someone would take their wealth and just basically buy this office,” Breed reportedly told supporters on election night. “It’s really unfortunate and pretty disgusting.”
Lurie, who ran as a relatively pro-business moderate calling for increased police staffing, more affordable housing, and expanded homeless shelter capacity, comes from substantial wealth.
He gave more than $8m to his own campaign, while a pro-Lurie committee got a $1m contribution from his mother, the billionaire Mimi Haas. A pro-Lurie committee also received support from Jan Koum, the Trump-supporting co-founder of WhatsApp, and Helen Schwab, wife of the investor and banking executive Charles Schwab.
Lurie’s campaign is one of the most personally expensive races for mayor in U.S. history, according to the San Francisco Standard, third only to the past campaigns of billionaires Michael Bloomberg in New York City and Rick Caruso in Los Angeles.
Lurie has also helped channel his wealth and influence into fighting poverty in the region, founding the nonprofit Tipping Point, which has invested over $440m in more than 200 organizations around the Bay Area since 2005.
The more than $28m 2024 mayoral election in San Francisco saw big money flying all around and is thought to be the most expensive since 2004 when the city’s era of ranked-choice voting began.
Michael Mortiz, the billionaire former chairman of the influential Sequoia venture capital firm, was a key backer of another candidate, Mark Farrell, helping funnel $15m into his campaign, while billionaire former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg supported Breed with $1m.
The fate of the city’s businesses was a key issue in the race, with office vacancies downtown hitting an all-time high this year, and some smaller businesses struggling to remain given the post-pandemic economic climate and issues with street crime and homelessness.
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