6 Supervisors-Elect confirmed after close races in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO — The November 5 election results have confirmed that two incumbent and four newly-elected Supervisors will serve for the next four years at the Board of Supervisors among them Chinese Americans will be up from one to two, re-elected District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan and newly-elected District 11 Supervisor Chyanne Chen.

After the competitive contest in some of the supervisor races, the latest election results have confirmed who the winners are.

District 1 will be continuously represented by Chan who was first elected in 2020 and re-elected for her second term.

Four years ago in 2020, Chan was narrowly elected over Marjan Philhour, who is a small business owner and former advisor of Mayor London Breed, with 50.18% of the vote and a margin of 124 votes.

In the November 5 election, 3-time candidate Philhour was once with more vote than Chan in the earlier vote counts. After more rounds of counts under the ranked-choice system, Chan was able to secure a bigger margin to win the race with 51.89% of the total vote over 48.11% for Philhour.

Chan was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Taiwan until age 13 coming to San Francisco. She speaks Cantonese and Mandarin in addition to English.

In District 3 supervisor race, 2-time candidate Danny Sauter won with a constantly commanding lead over Chinese American candidate Sharon Lai and Chinese-speaking candidate Moe Jamil. Sauter received the support from 54.99% of the voters over Lai's 45.01%.

Sauter is an activist in D3 and led the effort to start the North Beach Farmers Market during the pandemic. He has learned Chinese language by enrolling classes at the City College of San Francisco and taking private classes. In his first time running for D3 Supervisor in 2020, he received 43.49% of the vote and was defeated by incumbent Aaron Peskin with 56.51%.

District 5 voters elected a new Supervisor Bilal Mahmood who won with 52.98% of the vote. Incumbent Dean Preston was able to receive most first-choice votes, 12,005, over Mahwood's 11,828 votes. Under the ranked-choice voting system, Mahwood received more total votes (14,726) than Preston (13,070) who lost in his re-election bid.

Mahmood, a tech entrepreneur and political activist, ran for State Assembly as a first-time candidate in 2022 and lost to Matt Haney. He was first elected to the San Francisco Democratic Party Central Committee in March 2024.

District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar was successfully re-elected to her second term with 53.42% of the vote. She received leading first-choice votes of 17,524 over Matt Boschetto (13,400), a local small business owner.

District 9 voters elected Jackie Fielder as their new Supervisor with a leading margin of 59.67%. She had a wide lead (13,840 votes) over Trevor Chandler (9,037) and Roberto Hernandez (6,604) among the first-choice votes.

Fielder first ran for public office in 2020 to challenge State Senator Scott Wiener and lost. She is a Native American and Mexican American and was born in Long Beach. As a former educator and nonprofit director, Fielder is expected to be the most liberal member on the new Board of Supervisors in 2025.

District 11 voters elected Chyanne Chen as their new Supervisor. Chen will represent a district covering a significant number of Asian neighborhoods including Outer Mission, Excelsior, and Oceanview. Chen is also the first Chinese American Supervisor in the history of San Francisco representing D11 which has become the largest Asian supervisor district in the City since 2022.

It was a very close race in D11 for Chen to win over candidate Michael Lai with 50.41% of the vote (11,990) to Lai's 49.59% (11,794). The narrow margin was 196 votes. Lai led over Chen with first-choice votes by 8,668 to 8,242. However, Chen was able to receive more second- and third-choice votes from other candidates' supporters and ultimately won in the race.

Chen is also fully trilingual and speaks both Mandarin and Cantonese. She immigrated to San Francisco at age 15 from China and has lived in District 11 for 24 years. She has been active in the labor movement and community services in San Francisco Chinatown.

All winners in supervisor races will be sworn into office on January 8, 2025.