Ellen Lee Zhou, the only Republican Party mayoral candidate, demands to be included in debates

（SAN FRANCISCO) 13 candidates are qualified to run for mayor in the upcoming San Francisco November election. Ellen Lee Zhou becomes the only mayoral candidate from the Republican Party. While more mayoral debates are scheduled to be held, Zhou complained that she has been excluded from participating in any mayoral debates or candidate forums to this date.

This year marks the third election for Zhou to enter as a mayoral candidate. Her first run in the June 2018 election made her as the #5 top most voted among 9 mayoral candidates., according to the record from the Department of Elections. She received 9,521 votes behind Angela Alioto, Jane Kim, Mark Leno, and London Breed who won in the election.

In the November 2019 election, Zhou was ranked second among 6 candidates and received 24,667 votes (13.92%) behind the winner Breed who ran for re-election and received 125,200 total votes (70.66%).

Zhou said she decided to run for the third time for mayor because she wanted to fix the difficult challenges that the city has faced. San Francisco is a city where she has been a resident and worker since 1986. The issues that Zhou would find solutions if she gets elected include homelessness, drug addiction, crime, public corruption, children and youth services.

Zhou was born and raised in Taishan village in Guangdong Province where many of its residents came to California over 150 years ago to build the transcontinental railroad. She immigrated to San Francisco with her family in 1986. San Francisco has been her home since then.

She came to the country settling down in San Francisco at age 16. After graduating from high school, Zhou enrolled in San Francisco State University and earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Social Work.

Zhou worked as a Behavioral Health Clinician at the San Francisco Department of Public Health from 2006 to 2022 when she was terminated by the city for not being vaccinated during the COVID pandemic. She joined other city employees to sue the City for wrongful termination. The civil lawsuit is still pending in legal proceedings.

The mayoral debates and candidate forums have been ongoing and more will be coming up in the next several months. Zhou has not received any invitations to participate in the debates or forums yet.

Zhou has been disappointed for being excluded by organizers of those debate and forum events. "When people and news media talk about the top 5 mayoral candidates from the field poll results, did the poll surveys include me?” said Zhou.

“I was one of the top 5 most voted candidates both in the 2018 and 2019 mayoral elections. Why have I not been included this year?" Zhou said with frustration.

In some of the recent mayoral debates and candidate forums, Zhou would show up at the

front entrances and demand to be included in the events. Zhou was told that she was not invited because of her political party affiliation (Republican Party).

Wind Newspaper sent an inquiry to Manny Yekutiel who is the owner of Manny's Restaurant and co-host of the first 2024 mayoral debate held on June 12. Yekutiel did not respond to the request for comment.

"It is a citywide election to elect our next mayor. All 13 qualified candidates running for mayor should be welcomed and invited," said Zhou. "It is also an issue of equal opportunity. I should be treated fairly and offered the opportunity to present my views on city issues."

According to the latest data on June 19, 2024 from the San Francisco Department of Elections , a total of 504,990 residents have registered as voters in the City. 321,750 voters registered as Democrats who represent 63.7% of total voters. 125,959 voters registered as having no party preference which represents 24.5% of all voters. 38,165 (7.5%) voters registered as Republicans who present the second largest political party in San Francisco.

"As the only Republican mayoral candidate, I need to be included to let the city's voters who are Republicans know more of my positions on many issues. The mayoral race is also a nonpartisan election," Zhou added.

Based on the previous election results, Zhou's supporters in her first and second runs for mayor were mostly from the Asian neighborhoods in the city including Chinatown.

Richie Greenberg ran as the Republican candidate for mayor in 2018. "I faced being excluded from many events, candidate forums and debates. This was especially true as it was revealed my polling numbers were increasing, so there was an effort to keep my vision, my proposals and my criticisms of other candidates out of the public spotlight," Greenberg commented.

"Supporters were angered as well, since they wanted to see their preferred candidates take on the competition," Greenberg said participation in the debates and forums have been crucial to all candidates in any political elections. "A strong debate result also helps by gaining more media attention, video highlights and quotes from the debates, to reach a wider audience on TV and print paper."

Greenberg expected Zhou would face similar exclusion in this year's election. "As she is a Republican and can be tied to Trump, who is deeply unpopular in San Francisco. Her visit to Washington DC on January 6th has already been brought up these past few years and will again be used against her by the more prominent mayoral candidates should she ever appear on stage with them."

In reality, Greenberg said San Francisco is an overwhelmingly Democratic city. A large number of candidate forums and debates are hosted by dozens of democratic clubs across the city for the upcoming November election, they would only include their fellow Democrats candidates.

"One party, Democrat-rule, has led to the homeless crisis, a hollowed out downtown, and massive city budget deficits. The city is a mess. San Francisco desperately needs political balance," said John Dennis, Chairman of San Francisco Republican Party.

"The San Francisco Republican Party, and we suspect the voters of San Francisco, would welcome a Republican voice in the mayoral debates and candidate forums," Dennis said.