Becerra is far from my favorite candidate from the primary. His positions on consequential topics like housing are murky and he dodged the hard tradeoffs on labor costs for new housing projects; blaming Trump for the cost of construction isn't enough as governor. The alternative — Trump-backed Hilton — is just not serious enough even if it's easy to too quickly dismiss him as a Republican.

This is a largely ceremonial role, but I'm excited Ma wants to use her limited powers to do what she can, e.g. build housing on state and college land. She's had some issues — e.g. a $350k settlement for harassment that is a bad omen — but her opponent doesn't seem great.

Bonta has been one of the strongest voices on housing, upholding the laws our legislature has passed to force cities to do their part to produce housing. There's been noise about how he used to be friendly with those connected to the corruption scandal affecting indicted former Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, but with no confirmed issues and more distance, he continues to be someone I'm excited to back. His opponent is someone who's actively trying to block housing laws — the exact wrong person for the role.

Weber has largely led elections well even in the face of the Trump admin's assault.

Cohen has fixed some of the boring basics in the role, even if there is room to keep going. Her opponent seems far less serious.

Kounalakis is our current Lt. Governor who has the chops for the role. Her opponent has never held office and doesn't seem ready to manage our state's money.

The insurance market has been a mess, and Allen actually has a plan to address this. Kim is proposing big ideas that seem quite speculative and understudied during a crisis; we need someone ready from day 1. If Jane Kim's time on the Board of Supervisors in SF is any indication, many of her proposals seemed to lack deep analysis (e.g. her half-baked commuter shuttle plans), but strong analysis of complex systems is the very trait we need in this role.

Barrera has experience overseeing an education system as it rose in quality to become a top urban district with reasonable views on curriculum.

He is open to reforming or folding this outdated institution, and is best positioned to represent voters on it while it does exist.

I can't think of a more qualified person for this role than Scott Wiener. As usual, he's the individual I'm most excited to see voted into office when he appears on the ballot.

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Scott Wiener has been amongst the strongest voices in the CA legislature for housing over the past decade, and who's actually delivered. He's a workhorse that knows how to build coalitions across groups that rarely work together. Despite perceptions to the contrary, he's been an advocate to hold Israel accountable.

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In contrast, Chan has opposed Family Zoning and housing projects that together would leave 1,000s of working families without a roof over their head, exacerbating our affordability crisis; she says she's pro-immigrant, but refuses to build places for them to live. Chan claims to be pro-Palestine — but is backed by some of the strongest pro-Israel voices and was backed in the primary by a PAC funded in part by AIPAC affiliates. Her excuses are usually that she's just representing her constituents, which I read as a euphemism for unprincipled.

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If this were a different era, it would be easy to confuse Chan for an old-school Republican — fine if you want that, but let's not kid ourselves that they're actually "progressive". Fun fact: the SF Republican party actually opposes Wiener more than Chan because he's probably going to do something actually progressive, not just talk about it.

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It's wild this is even a race.

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I can't think of someone more qualified, with the right temperament for this moment — and importantly, with the actual track record and policy positions to represent SF in Washington.

Mullin has been a strong transit and housing advocate while his opponent is running on key Trump-aligned issues that seem to be disconnected from the needs of voters in the district.

He's been a reliable vote for housing and reasonable public safety measures. He's got issues, but it's not a close comparison vs the opposition.

She's not been the most reliable vote on housing but she's done reasonable work on public safety and is far more qualified than the alternative particularly with her experience to-date in the legislature.

Generally, limited public information on justices. Default should be to retain with no sources indicated any red flags on each of the judges.

Generally, limited public information on justices. Default should be to retain with no sources indicated any red flags on each of the judges.

These seem like the likeliest candidates to focus on student outcomes and putting our district on better financial footing. This means operationalizing plans to bring parents back into the district by making our schools better and easier to navigate (e.g. accelerating the shift to the new, long-awaited school assignment system).

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Voted for Family Zoning and has experience as an ex-Bloomberg admin official. Has made good early successes to legislate ways to revitalize SF.

Voted for Family Zoning and backed reasonable public safety policies. The alternatives are far less reasonable (even if he wants to still re-litigate cars policies, which I suspect he's just doing for political preservation)

Strongly focused on safety and revitalization. Voted for Family Zoning and other pro-housing bills.

Patel seems more likely to be more pro-housing with more reasonable policies on public housing. McCoy has some good positions but falls a bit behind her.

Ellington has the best housing pitch for this open seat. Lin is a longer shot backup, to protect against some of the worse other options.

Yes: An $11.25B bond measure, which goes to affordable and veteran-focused programs. We need more housing, which takes money, and bond measures are typical ways to get this done.

Yes: Doubles the cap on CA’s rainy day fund from 10% to 20%. Our tax revenue is volatile, often swinging the state from deficit to surplus based on the performance of the stock market and a handful of companies. Aims to reduce this variability for more budget stability.

No: This proposition extends existing taxes on high income earners and allocates them to specific uses (education, health care). That extension is reasonable, but there's no reason this should be a proposition. The legislature has full power and authority to pass this, and if our budgetary needs change — e.g. the government needs funds for other poverty alleviation programs, other education programs e.g. universities — then their hands are tied as only a new proposition can amend these restrictions. As context, revenue from the top 2% of income earners covers about 50% of CA's income tax intake, so the implications of that lock-in are big.

Yes: Today most cities are prohibited from running public campaign finance programs. This proposition removes those restrictions. It could've been better designed — e.g. better oversight, which has been central to avoiding abuses — but ultimately leaves the actual funding and implementation to the cities. We've seen mixed results from public financing measures to-date, but I think this is a worthy risk for enabling less money to influence politics.

Yes: This proposition treats recalled officials as if they were any other official who left office (e.g. resigned, died) and follows the typical succession rules. Today, when a state official is recalled, there is a single question to ask who should replace them that allows lots of funny games to take place (see Newsom recall). It means candidates who should've been recalled aren't for fear of who might win that second race (usually, it'll be a long-shot Republican who'd never actually win the election otherwise given the mechanics of how this works), and importantly it reduces the incentive to just recall candidates out of sour grapes for losing a prior election.

Yes: Allows the state to issue bonds that would help middle-income buyers purchase homes. Importantly, it's structured such that its costs are fully covered by beneficiaries and it aims to create new housing vs just drumming up demand for the existing supply, driving up costs for those it aims to help. Overall, it seems reasonable. I'd prefer this have gone through the legislature, and the impact of this is small, but affordability caused by insufficient housing is the crisis of our time, so every bit helps.

No: Allows the state to issue bonds that in practice about half would go directly to a single institute tied to Michael Milken. This is a sweetheart giveaway to an institute with no track record, that we'd otherwise likely not fund if this was done through a normal process.

No: The measure requires those voting to present ID or indicate some ID number (e.g. when voting by mail). The problem: there's no widespread voting fraud in CA to solve for, it creates endless reasons to challenge votes for reasons that have to do with bureaucratic reasons instead of on the real merits. The result: more disenfranchised voters and less trust in democracy. This measure is unfortunately a wolf in sheep's clothing — looking at the Trump-affiliated folks backing it, it's clear the intent is far from saving democracy versus undermining it.

No: This is the billionaire's tax you've likely read plenty about. Here's what it really is: a 5% tax on billionaires who were living in the state as of Jan 1, 2026. Importantly, that money would be 90% allocated to healthcare — and only healthcare! — and is calculated in ways that are pretty atypical (e.g. taxing paper wealth when the taxpayer doesn't have any money to actually provide).

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To state upfront: I'm not that sympathetic to billionaires complaining that the state and country that enabled them to create such wealth suddenly needs to be funded. I think a national wealth tax that's actually well constructed is a great idea (part of why I'm a fan of things like property tax reform to actually tax the wealthy). And, I agree there is a gap in healthcare funding given Trump's cuts. However, this is very much not the right solution.

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This proposal, particularly around restricting the funding largely to healthcare, has split union support with some opposing, supporting, or just staying silent.

No: This was designed as a poison pill for the billionaire's tax (Prop 40), thus it's not meant to be a serious policy proposal. While dressed up as good governance, it restricts spending flexibility for the state for no sensible reason.

No: Also a poison pill for the billionaire's tax (Prop 40), and equally not well thought through. It restricts future taxes tied to owning personal property (i.e. non-real estate), which feels unnecessarily broad, legislating at the ballot box "just in case" to restrict future potential ballot measures that may or may not one day emerge.

Yes: This restores a requirement that 2/3rds of voters support certain taxes placed on the ballot from citizen petitions. It will make taxes hard to pass, but we survived plenty fine before the 2017 CA Supreme Court "Upland" ruling changed the rules and it will just require governments to finally do the work of looking at their budgets seriously with the plenty of revenue they already have. You can argue this means proposals with a majority support will fail, but I think many of the recent regressive taxes should require more support.

No: This applies various restrictions to certain healthcare clinics' budgets. Remember all those dialysis clinic propositions from the last few years? This is from the same team behind that. It's a classic labor dispute between a set of non-profits and a union, with the union boss wanting to get negotiating leverage so he's going to voters. If you fail, just keep trying? Yah.... maybe don't here. Two private entities should resolve the fight themselves instead of trying to get voters to get involved.

Yes: This proposition reforms the CA Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), a landmark legislation that's in the decades since actually been used to block very pro-environment projects like urban infill. This law has its issues, e.g. it will make some urban sprawl easier. But, the cost CEQA has had on the environment and to block housing is far higher. Taking what we can get is better (even if this ideally would have been done by the state legislature who has not been willing to go far enough to make the deep, necessary reform happen to-date).

No: This measure implements a sales tax (1% in SF, 0.5% in other affected counties) to raise $1B/yr for transit agencies.

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This is a proposition I feel incredibly conflicted about. Like many Bay Area residents, I am a daily user of transit. I think transit is critical for you even if you don't use it — it's essential to create our thriving Bay and its rich communities, and even if you drive, it helps reduce the demand for driving.

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I don't buy the doomsday picture being painted if this measure fails.

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I expect there will be some pain, but as we've seen when taxes fail, money is suddenly found through deeper accountability, using resources more efficiently — and most importantly — further government support. Take BART. Pre-pandemic, it was one of the least subsidized transit agencies in the US. Thus, when ridership dropped, a greater percentage of the budget fell with it. CA needs to do what many other states have done: directly subsidize the agencies. We've done it before, and I think it will be completely politically untenable to not do so if this fails. Sales taxes are still a useful and common tool, and I think this means we'll instead get a pared down 2028 tax measure that includes better accountability. I think the “worst-case” pictures painted in the media for the coming year are probably the extreme, not median, case.

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Governments and agencies in the Bay keep passing taxes rather than contend with issues like blossoming pension obligations. Fiscal responsibility and oversight — along with the state stepping in to pay its fair share — have not yet been exhausted and should be the next step, not a regressive sales tax that's likely to hit the poorest Bay Area residents the most and further erode affordability.

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If you vote in favor of this, I think that would be reasonable too. I'm making a bet that we can solve this better with the help of Sacramento and future measures, but you may not have the same optimism I do for the political will to address this properly in the coming year.

Yes: This measure follows the analysis from past commission reform initiatives and must be passed by voters to be implemented. This follows deep analysis and will reduce complexity in SF government, save money, and help the city work better.

No: This would allow the city to create a public bank. It would cost $310M-$460M over eight years if we end up later financing it (as context, the city faced a $643M two-year budget deficit as of this spring) and it's unclear why this is a critical initiative for the city to put its attention and money towards, particularly as much of this should instead be legislated via ordinance vs going to voters if it was actually important.

Yes: Contributes money from the General Fund to a trust to build affordable housing, with pauses allowed during large budget deficits. Housing takes money, this is a way there. Set-asides aren't ideal, but given the carve out for large deficit years, can be more reasonable.

Yes: Requires 8% (instead of 2%) of registered voters to place a measure on the ballot, and prevents the mayor/supervisors from placing measures on the ballot directly. I've long said we should let Supervisors legislate — not rely on direct democracy. And, they should actually do their job vs send hard choices they don't have the political will to deal with to voters as we too often see. Ballot measures too often restrict what the city can do to govern well versus improve things, and this gets us to a more reasonable medium. It's quite anomalous to see so many measures in a city like SF — Oakland and San Jose typically see just a few per cycle. Measures are also often used as ways to funnel political money without as much oversight/limits to individual politicians' campaigns. This improves on all those issues.

Yes: This centralizes further authority for purchasing with the City Administrator versus requiring Board of Supervisors approval for smaller contracts. The Administrator is hired to run much of the city as essentially its COO and is the right owner for smaller purchasing decisions. This updates past cutoffs for spending approval to their rough inflation adjusted equivalent, matching past voters' intent.

Yes: Creates clearer lines of authority by giving the mayor the right to hire and fire within executive branch leadership, just as we have in the state or national government. This gives the mayor the ability to implement their elected mandate and move the city to action faster, versus today where there's lots of leaders but too often few who can truly be accountable to the issues the city has. It risks centralizing power, but the downsides of diffuse power and ability to move the city forward have led to the slow-operating government we've unfortunately grown used to.

No: This lets cars back on the Great Highway. It's the I've-lost-count-th proposal to bring cars back to some road on the westside by removing the permanent infrastructure that defines one of the top-used parks in the city, Sunset Dunes. We've litigated these issues so many times, we really need to just move on. More outdoor space seems great particularly atop a road that already was often closed due to sand management issues.

Yes: Creates a 15-year parcel tax to fund Muni operations, based on building size not property value (for most, $129/yr). This is less regressive than a sales tax, but still somewhat regressive (younger homeowners of a small house likely pay the same as a multi-millionaire homeowner — or more if the latter is 65+ years old, as older homeowners are exempted).

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SFMTA is doing a lot to manage their budget, and Muni is critical for the city. This is a reasonable measure to help SF, scoped to one city and better structured than Measure RTM.

No: This is a measure from the Democratic Socialists of America to kill transfer tax reform. It restricts revenue from a tax, reducing the Board of Supervisors' flexibility to manage the city's budget in deficits. This removes $120M from the general fund amidst a deficit, which will cut from things like fire, police, etc. It claims to direct this to build housing, but it seems unlikely to produce much new construction.

Yes: This ends the transfer tax exemption for large, foreclosed commercial/apartment properties. This closes a loophole investors used to get around transfer taxes, raising $100-150M/yr. This exempts homes, condos, and small buildings ensuring individuals aren't negatively impacted. This raises revenue to match past legislative intent without affecting housing production.