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      Democratic leaders across US work to lead resistance against Trump’s agenda

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      After the November elections ushered in a new era of unified Republican governance in Washington, Democratic leaders across the country are once again preparing to lead the resistance to Donald Trump’s second-term agenda.California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said he would convene a special legislative session next month to “safeguard California values and fundamental rights”.Washington state’s governor-elect, Bob Ferguson, who is currently the state’s attorney general, said his legal team has been preparing for months for the possibility of a second Trump term – an endeavor that included a “line-by-line” review of Project 2025, the 900+ page policy blueprint drafted by the president-elect’s conservative allies.And the governors of Illinois and Colorado this week unveiled a new coalition designed to protect state-level institutions against the threat of authoritarianism, as the nation prepares for a president who has vowed to seek retribution against his political enemies and to only govern as a dictator on “day one”.“We know that simple hope alone won’t save our democracy,” the Colorado governor, Jared Polis, said on a conference call announcing the group, called Governors Safeguarding Democracy. “We need to work together, especially at the state level, to protect and strengthen it.”With Democrats locked out of control in Washington, many in the party will turn to blue state leaders – governors, attorneys general and mayors – as a bulwark against a second Trump administration. For these ambitious Democrats, it is also an opportunity to step into the leadership void left by Kamala Harris’s defeat.Progressives such as Newsom and the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, are viewed as potential presidential contenders in 2028, while Democratic governors in states that voted for Trump such as Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan are seen as models for how the party can begin to rebuild their coalition. And Tim Walz, Harris’s vice-presidential running mate, returned home to Minnesota with a national profile and two years left of his gubernatorial term.Leaders of the nascent blue state resistance are pre-emptively “Trump-proofing” against a conservative governing agenda, which they have cast as a threat to the values and safety of their constituents. As a candidate, Trump promised to carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history”. In statements and public remarks, several Democrats say they fear the Trump administration will seek to limit access to medication abortion or seek to undermine efforts to provide reproductive care to women from states with abortion bans. They also anticipate actions by the Trump administration to roll back environmental regulations and expand gun rights.“To anyone who intends to come take away the freedom, opportunity and dignity of Illinoisans, I would remind you that a happy warrior is still a warrior. You come for my people – you come through me,” Pritzker said last week.Unlike in 2016, when Trump’s victory shocked the nation, blue state leaders say they have a tested – and updated – playbook to draw upon. But they also acknowledge that Trump 2.0 may present new and more difficult challenges.Ferguson said Trump’s first-term executive actions were “often sloppy”, which created an opening for states to successfully challenge them in court. Eight years later, and after studying Project 2025 and Trump’s Agenda 47, he anticipates the next Trump White House will be “better prepared” this time around.Pritzker said Trump was surrounding himself with “absolute loyalists to his cult of personality and not necessarily to the law”. “Last time, he didn’t really know where the levers of government were,” the governor said on a call with reporters this week. “I think he probably does now.”The courts have also become more conservative than they were when Trump took office eight years ago, a direct result of his first-term appointments to the federal bench, which included many powerful federal appeals court judges and three supreme court justices.The political landscape has also changed. In 2016, Trump won the electoral college but lost the popular vote. Despite Republican control of Congress, there were a number of Trump skeptics willing – at least initially – to buck the president during his first two years in office.This time around, Trump is all but certain to win the popular vote, and he made surprising gains in some of the bluest corners of the country.Though the former president came nowhere close to winning his home state of New York, he made significant inroads, especially on Long Island. At a post-election conference last week, New York’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, struck a more neutral tone. Hochul, who faces a potentially tough re-election in 2026, vowed to protect constituents against federal overreach, while declaring that she was prepared to work with “him or anybody regardless of party”.In New Jersey, where Trump narrowed his loss from 16 percentage points in 2020 to five percentage points in 2024, the Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, acknowledged the result was a “sobering moment” for the party and country. Outlining his approach to the incoming administration, Murphy said: “If it’s contrary to our values, we will fight to the death. If there’s an opportunity for common ground, we will seize that as fast as anybody.”Progressives and activists say they are looking to Democratic leaders to lead the charge against Trump’s most extreme proposals, particularly on immigration.“Trump may be re-elected but he does not have a mandate to come into and rip apart our communities,” said Greisa Martínez Rosas, the executive director of United We Dream Action, a network of groups that advocate for young people brought to the US as children, known as Dreamers.She called on state and local officials, as well as university heads and business leaders, to “use every tool at their disposal” to resist Trump’s mass deportation campaign, stressing: “There is a lot we can do to ensure Trump and his cabinet are not successful in their plans.”State attorneys general are again poised to play a pivotal role in curbing the next administration’s policy ambitions.“The quantity of litigation since the first Trump administration has been really off the charts – it’s at a new level,” said Paul Nolette, a political scientist at Marquette University in Wisconsin. “I fully expect that to continue in Trump 2.0.”There were 160 multi-state filings against the Trump administration during his four years in office, twice as many as were filed against Barack Obama during his entire eight-year presidency, according to a database maintained by Nolette.Many of the Democratic lawsuits succeeded – at least initially – in delaying or striking down Trump administration policies or regulations, Nolette said. Attorneys general can also leverage their state’s influence and economic power by entering legal settlements with companies. States have used this approach in the past to “advance their own regulatory goals”, Nolette said, for example, forcing the auto industry to adopt stricter environmental regulations.In a proclamation calling for a special session next month, Newsom asked the legislature to bolster the state’s legal funding to challenge – and defend California against – the Trump administration. Among his concerns, the California Democrat identified civil rights, climate action, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, as well as Trump’s threats to withhold disaster funding from the state and the potential for his administration to repeal protections shielding undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children from deportation.Trump responded on Truth Social, using a derisive nickname for the Democratic governor: “Governor Gavin Newscum is trying to KILL our Nation’s beautiful California. He is using the term ‘Trump-Proof’ as a way of stopping all of the GREAT things that can be done to ‘Make California Great Again,’ but I just overwhelmingly won the Election.”Democratic leaders in battleground states that Trump won are also calibrating their responses – and not all are eager to join the resistance.“I don’t think that’s the most productive way to govern Arizona,” the state’s Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, told reporters this week, according to the Arizona Capitol Times. Hobbs, who faces a potentially difficult re-election fight in 2026, said she would “stand up against actions that hurt our communities” but declined to say how she would respond if Trump sought to deport Dreamers or to nationalize the Arizona national guard as part of his mass deportation campaign.The state’s Democratic attorney general, Kris Mayes, who also faces re-election in two years, drew a harder line against Trump, vowing to fight “unconstitutional behavior” and protect abortion access, according to Axios. In an interview on MSNBC, Mayes said she had “no intention” of dropping the criminal case against allies of the former president who attempted to help Trump overturn Biden’s victory in the state.Yet she insisted there would be areas of common ground. She urged Trump to revive a bipartisan border deal that he had previously tanked and called on the next administration to send more federal resources and agents to help combat the flow of fentanyl into the US.With Democrats locked out of power in Washington, the new Indivisible Guide, a manual developed by former Democratic congressional staffers after Trump’s election in 2016 and recently updated to confront a new era of Maga politics, envisions a major role for blue states.“Over the next two years, your Democratic elected officials will make choices every single day about whether to stand up to Maga or whether to go along with it,” the Indivisible guide states. “Your spirited, determined advocacy will ensure that the good ones know they’ve got a movement behind them as they fight back – and the bad ones know they’re on notice.”Among the examples of actions blue state activists can demand their leaders consider, it suggests establishing protections for out-of-state residents seeking abortion access or gender-affirming care; refusing to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement and forging regional compacts to safeguard environmental initiatives, data privacy and healthcare.Democratic leaders at every level and across the country – even those in purple or red states – can serve as “backstops for protecting the democratic space”, said Mary Small, chief strategy officer at Indivisible.“The important things are to be proactive and bold, to be innovative and to work with each other,” she said. “I don’t think everybody has to have all of the answers right now, but to have that intention and that commitment and to not shrink down in anticipation of a more oppressive federal government.” More

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      Whitesides Defeats Garcia in California, Handing House Democrats a Win

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      George Whitesides, a former NASA chief of staff, narrowly defeated Representative Mike Garcia, Republican of California, The Associated Press said on Tuesday night, flipping a key seat in the Antelope Valley that Democrats had long sought to win.Mr. Garcia conceded on Monday night even as votes were still being counted, after Mr. Whitesides jumped out to a roughly 7,000-vote lead.Democrats had widely seen Mr. Garcia’s Santa Clarita-based seat in the northern suburbs of Los Angeles as one of their best pickup opportunities in the Golden State. The district supported Mr. Biden in 2020, but Democrats came up short in their attempts to defeat the Republican former military pilot after running weak candidates two cycles in a row.This year, they pinned their hopes on Mr. Whitesides, the clean-cut former chief executive of Virgin Galactic who billed himself as a moderate Democrat — and also happened to be a prolific fund-raiser, a talent that helped push him over the edge in the district’s expensive Los Angeles-based media market.Democrats had hoped that by running up victories in New York and California, their party could take back the House. But while votes were still being counted in California, it appeared that after a number of setbacks for Democrats in races across the country, including in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Colorado, House Republicans were on track to win a narrow majority.On the campaign trail, Mr. Whitesides stressed in equal measure the importance of protecting women’s reproductive rights and working across the aisle. But he also spoke frequently about the jobs he created while leading Virgin Galactic, noting that the economy and affordable housing were among the top issues he heard about from voters.“In Congress, you can count on me to fight to create more good local jobs, lower everyday costs, build safe communities, protect Social Security and Medicare, and protect reproductive freedom,” Mr. Whitesides said in a statement on Monday night.The race was one of a handful in California and New York, two coastal bastions that emerged this cycle as the unlikely heart of the fight for control of the House of Representatives.Mr. Garcia, a former Navy fighter pilot, had relied heavily on his military credentials in the aviation-heavy district to help paint himself as more mainstream than many in the House G.O.P. conference. He billed himself as a check against the state’s Democratic supermajority in Sacramento, hoping to tap into a well of voter discontent with California’s high cost of living.But he was ultimately unable to withstand the overwhelming number of Democratic voters who came out to cast their ballots in this cycle’s presidential election. More

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      Oakland mayor and county’s district attorney ousted in historic recall

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      Voters have ousted Oakland’s mayor and the region’s progressive district attorney, in a major political shake-up for the northern California port city. It’s the first time in modern history that voters here have ousted leadership from either position.Sheng Thao, the mayor, and Pamela Price, the district attorney for Alameda county, were both the target of recall campaigns, launched amid discontent over the city’s challenges: a spiralling housing crisis, rising costs and the departure of the city’s last remaining major league sports team.But the recall campaigns particularly centered on residents’ enduring frustrations about the area’s crime rates. Like many cities in the US, Oakland experienced a surge in violent crime during the pandemic, one that took longer than elsewhere to subside. Statistics had shown both violent and non-violent crime finally trending down – before the election, the Oakland police announced a 30% drop in homicides this year compared to 2023. Non-fatal shootings were down 20% and robberies were down 24%. Still, many residents remained deeply frustrated.The overwhelming support for both recalls came amid a broader sentiment in the state that crime had become out of control. Californians also supported a tough-on-crime measure, Prop 36, to enact harsher penalties for retail theft, property crimes and drug offenses and undo some of the landmark criminal justice reforms from a decade ago. They also voted down Prop 6, a measure to ban forced prison labor. Foundational Oakland Unites, a committee set up to fund signature gathering before the mayoral recall, sent residents a “Common Sense Voter Guide” that encouraged a yes on 36 and no on 6.While the campaigns tapped into deep frustrations among residents, they were funded in large part by a handful of the region’s wealthy residents. Over the summer, the local news site the Oaklandside revealed that Philip Dreyfuss, a hedge-fund manager who lives in the wealthy enclave of Piedmont, had been the biggest funder to the effort to recall the mayor. Ron Conway, a billionaire tech investor, was another major funder.Thao, the mayor, came into office just two years ago, the first Hmong American to lead a major city. She faced opposition from the start of her tenure, including from the city’s police department – she fired the police chief early in her term – and her moderate opponent in the mayoral contest.“People are fed up with crime and homelessness,” Dan Lindheim, a former Oakland city administrator and now professor at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, told the Guardian in October. “And they want to hold somebody accountable. It was like: ‘We don’t like what they’re doing, so – symbolically – it’s off with their heads.’”Criticism intensified after the FBI raided Thao’s home in a sprawling corruption investigation. The agency has neither implicated the mayor in any wrongdoing, nor absolved her of involvement. Thao has maintained her innocence.“It was just piling one thing on top of another,” Lindheim said. “That was the seal of death for her mayoral position.”In a statement last week, Thao said she was proud of her administration’s accomplishments and was “committed to ensuring we stay on track by supporting a smooth transition”.Price, the district attorney for Alameda county, which includes Oakland, was also ousted in a recall campaign that began just months after she took office. She was the first Black woman to hold the job. A former civil rights attorney, Price had come into office promising to reform the justice system, stop “over-criminalizing” young people and hold law enforcement to better account.The Alameda county board of supervisors is expected to appoint an interim district attorney.Thao must vacate the office as soon as election results are certified on 5 December and the Oakland city council declares a vacancy at its next meeting, Nikki Fortunato Bas, the city council president, said in a statement.A special election for a new mayor will be held within 120 days, or roughly four months.Until then, Bas will serve as interim mayor, unless she wins a seat on the Alameda county board of supervisors. As of Monday, Bas was trailing in that race. More

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      Firefighters Gain More Control of Southern California Blaze That Spread Rapidly

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      After the Mountain fire ballooned to more than 20,000 acres in less than 24 hours, improving weather conditions helped crews contain more of the blaze on Saturday.Calming winds helped firefighters gain the upper hand on Saturday against the Mountain fire in Southern California, after three days of pitched battle using dozens of aircraft, hundreds of fire trucks and legions of firefighters on foot wielding saws and shovels.High winds and thick vegetation fueled the Mountain fire, which started on Wednesday near the city of Oxnard in Ventura County and exploded to more than 20,000 acres in less than 24 hours. But the winds died down on Friday, aiding fire crews in their fight against the blaze.Officials said Saturday evening that the fire was 21 percent contained and that it had not jumped its perimeter. The nearly 3,000 personnel working to tame the blaze planned to “mop up” hot spots and move through burned neighborhoods to assess the damage, officials said.The Ventura County fire chief, Dustin Gardner, said at a briefing Friday evening that he was grateful for the emergency workers who responded on the day the fire broke out. They “brought this calm to where we’re at today,” he said.Earlier in the week, fierce winds that gusted up to 80 miles per hour hurled flaming embers far beyond the fire line, sparking new fires, setting houses ablaze and grounding some firefighting aircraft. Roughly 10,000 people were forced to evacuate in what quickly became one of the most destructive wildfires in Southern California in recent years. As of Friday night, about 2,000 were still waiting to go home. Roughly 130 structures have been reported destroyed and damaged. There were no known fatalities, and no reports of missing people, Sheriff James Fryhoff of Ventura County, said in the Friday briefing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      After California Mountain Fire, Residents Return to Find Homes Reduced to Rubble

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      The Mountain fire has torn through more than 20,000 acres and destroyed more than 130 structures in Ventura County. “It’s just devastating,” one resident said.In the city of Camarillo, Calif., on Old Coach Drive, the smell of smoke lay heavy in the air. The fire that erupted this week had hopscotched around the neighborhood, leaving some homes relatively unscathed but reducing several to charred piles of wood and rubble.Kathleen Scott and her sister Tonia Wall surveyed what was left of their two-bedroom home: layers of ash and the metal outlines of what was once the washing machine and dryer.Bent over the earth where a bedroom would have been, the two used a small garden spade to dig through the remains. They hoped they might find some mementos belonging to Ms. Scott’s daughter, Jacquelyn, who died from a rare neurological condition at age 4.“We’re not expecting to find anything huge,” Ms. Scott, 57, said. “We’re just sifting through stuff, just to see, just in case, not to have any regrets.”“We’re not expecting to find anything huge,” Kathleen Scott, 57, said. “We’re just sifting through stuff, just to see, just in case, not to have any regrets.”Loren Elliott for The New York TimesMs. Scott holding some salvaged keepsakes that she found on her destroyed property.Loren Elliott for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      California’s attorney general readies the fight against Trump’s extreme agenda: ‘We’re prepared’

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      California was considered a leader in fighting the most extreme policies of Donald Trump’s first administration, and after the Republican’s decisive win this week, officials in the Golden state say they are more prepared to resist Trump’s expected agenda for his second term.Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, will be a crucial figure in that effort, tasked with spearheading litigation and defending vulnerable Californians’ rights in the courtroom. It’s a tall order as the president-elect has promised policies that could threaten the state’s immigrant population, LGBTQ+ residents, climate initiatives, gun safety measures, healthcare programs and abortion rights.But Bonta, in an interview with the Guardian on Thursday, said his office was ready on every front.“I know a lot of people are anxious and worried, concerned, fearful, angry, sad,” said the Democrat, who now occupies the seat previously held by Kamala Harris. “I’m not happy with the results, but I’m energized and ready to fight … I’m ready to do my job and lean in hard and punch back and push back and fight back against any attacks from the Trump administration on California’s ongoing progress.”Bonta’s efforts could have a significant impact in the most populous and diverse state in the US, home to the fifth largest economy in the world and considered a leader on progressive policies.In Trump’s first term, Bonta recalled, California successfully fought Trump’s “public charge” rule, which sought to block green cards for immigrants who accessed certain benefits, such as food stamps. The state also sued to prevent Trump from denying funds to sanctuary cities, and helped stop the former president’s effort to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), a program that protects immigrants who entered the US unauthorized as children.“Trump has a very difficult time resisting the temptation to violate the law,” said Bonta, saying he expected the president-elect to once again use executive action to make changes that require congressional action. “If he wanted to take a blowtorch to the Affordable Care Act and end it on day one by executive order … he can’t do it.” Trump recently said he had “concepts of a plan” to replace the popular Obama-era program that expanded healthcare coverage, and his victory has raised alarms among public health advocates.Bonta said he had been in discussion with attorneys general across the US – sharing briefs, memos and knowledge from their fights during Trump’s first term – and they were primed to coordinate lawsuits as needed: “It’s all hands on deck, use every tool that you have. Litigation will certainly be one of the most potent and powerful ones.“We’ve been preparing for months, in some cases years,” he continued. After Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022, his staff wrote a legal brief to challenge a national abortion ban, a draft he has ready, if necessary. His staff has also monitored comments by Trump’s inner circle and reviewed Project 2025, the rightwing blueprint for his second term drafted by Trump’s allies.“We’ve got a lot in our back pocket ready to drop,” he said. “In some [cases], the whole strategy is thought through – the court we file in, when we file it, based on what action the Trump administration takes. We’ve just gotta dot the Is and cross the Ts and press print. But we are very far along, very advanced in our preparation.”Trump has threatened unprecedented mass deportations, an agenda that was partially thwarted in his first term by California and other blue states that passed sanctuary laws limiting local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration agents. California Democrats will face pressure from immigrant rights’ groups to expand those sanctuary policies, which advocates say are not currently the strongest in the nation. California prisons, for example, continue to coordinate with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), which helps drive deportations, but Gavin Newsom, the state governor, has previously vetoed efforts to prevent cooperation with Ice.Bonta said officials should be exploring ways to “reinforce and strengthen” the existing sanctuary law, though he didn’t offer specifics.Newsom has called a special legislative session in December for lawmakers to discuss ways to “Trump-proof” state laws, and immigration will probably be a priority.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The federal government can’t conscript or commandeer state or local resources or law enforcement agencies to do their job [of immigration enforcement],” Bonta said, describing the current sanctuary policies. “There could be some additions that could help make that stronger.”He said he would be looking for ways to ensure the sanctuary law is properly followed and implemented across the state. Advocates are also bracing for rightwing pro-Trump sheriffs in conservative counties to potentially violate California’s sanctuary rules. Bonta said he would respond if that happens: “They are law enforcement officers. They need to enforce the law. They can’t pick and choose the laws they want to enforce … if they’re going to politicize it and break the law, then we’ll be there to hold them accountable.”Trump has also promised a major rollback of LGBTQ+ rights and some of his campaign ads have spread significant misinformation about the rights of transgender Americans, particularly around healthcare and sports. He has pledged to revoke funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to youth, punish schools that affirm trans youth and push a law stating the government doesn’t legally recognize trans people.California was the first state in 2022 to establish itself as a sanctuary for trans kids seeking healthcare, and Bonta’s office successfully sued a local school district over its policy that would have required schools to out trans and gender non-conforming students to their parents.“We’ve been fighting on so many fronts against the attacks on our transgender kids, whether fighting for them to be able to play sports … or use the bathroom consistent with their gender identity, or be able to go to a doctor’s office and have gender-affirming care,” he said. “We will continue … The courts are a good place to find relief when you target and single out someone based on their protected class.”Bonta advocated for Harris during the election and was hoping he would not need to stand up to the federal government. “I didn’t want this outcome,” he said. “I was working to have a different outcome, but I couldn’t guarantee [it] … so we needed to be prepared for the possibility of [Trump]. Unfortunately, this outcome is here. Fortunately, though, we’re ready for it, because we prepared.”Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage

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      California Shifts Rightward on Crime in an Election Fueled by Frustration

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      Voters in the Democratic-run state overwhelmingly approved a measure to impose harsher sentences for crimes and were on their way to ousting two progressive district attorneys.California has shown no signs of going Republican anytime soon, but in Tuesday’s elections the reliably liberal state lurched to the right in ways that might surprise other Americans.Fed up with open-air drug use, “smash-and-grab” robberies and shampoo locked away in stores, California voters overwhelmingly passed a ballot measure, Proposition 36, that will impose harsher penalties for shoplifting and drug possession. Voters in Oakland and Los Angeles were on their way to ousting liberal district attorneys who had campaigned on social justice promises to reduce imprisonment and hold the police accountable. And statewide measures to raise the minimum wage, ban the forced labor of inmates and expand rent control, all backed by progressive groups and labor unions, were heading toward defeat.Amid a conservative shift nationally that included Donald J. Trump’s reclamation of the White House, voters in heavily Democratic California displayed a similar frustration, challenging the state’s identity as a reflexively liberal bastion.And Mr. Trump appears to have gained ground in California compared with four years ago, based on initial election returns, despite facing Vice President Kamala Harris in her home state. (She was still ahead by nearly 18 percentage points after a vote count update on Thursday, but Joseph R. Biden Jr. won in 2020 by 29 points.)The mood this year was “very negative about the direction of the country especially, but also the state,” said Mark Baldassare, who is a political scientist and the statewide survey director for the Public Policy Institute of California. “Lots of concerns about the direction of the economy, and worries about the cost of living and public safety.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie elected mayor of San Francisco

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      After years of negative headlines and post-pandemic economic struggle, San Francisco has picked a wealthy Democratic outsider with no government experience to serve as the city’s new mayor.Daniel Lurie, 47, is one of the heirs to the Levi Strauss jeans company fortune, and previously spent 15 years as the executive of a San Francisco non-profit he founded. He defeated several Democratic challengers, including the current mayor, London Breed, in an election that was expected to break local campaign spending records.“I’m deeply grateful to my incredible family, campaign team and every San Franciscan who voted for accountability, service and change,” Lurie said in a statement. “No matter who you supported in this election, we stand united in the fight for San Francisco’s future and a safer and more affordable city for all.”Lurie poured more than $8m of his own money into his campaign, while his billionaire mother, Mimi Haas, backed him with another $1m. He will be the first San Francisco mayor since 1911 to win office without previously serving in government, making him the city’s “least experienced mayor in a long time”, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.But the Chronicle also ended up endorsing Lurie, praising the “balance of compassion and toughness” in his planned approach to dealing with the people in San Francisco struggling with homelessness, and saying the city needed a change in leadership, making Lurie’s inexperience potentially worth the risk.Lurie had touted his experience funding and building affordable housing at the Tipping Point Foundation as evidence that he could lead San Francisco in the right direction.San Francisco is dominated by Democrats, and so the choice was effectively between moderates and progressives, with voters focusing on pragmatic centrists. Lurie beat and will replace Breed, the city’s first Black female mayor, who has led the city since 2018.Breed, who was raised by her grandmother in public housing, conceded the race on Thursday when it became clear she could not overcome deep voter discontent and was trailing Lurie, a philanthropist and anti-poverty non-profit founder.“At the end of the day, this job is bigger than any one person and what matters is that we keep moving this city forward,” Breed said, adding that she had called Lurie to congratulate him. “I know we are both committed to improving this city we love.”The northern California city has come to represent the challenges faced by many large US cities that have struggled with an uneven economic recovery and rising cost of living since the Covid-19 pandemic. Standout issues across all candidates’ campaigns were housing and crime, even with crime down 32%.San Francisco has the highest median household income among major US cities, but homelessness remains intractable. Since a June supreme court ruling, Breed’s administration has been actively sweeping unhoused encampments.Her critics pointed out that sweeps are temporary fixes and the city has not done enough to offer shelter to its unhoused population.In an interview with Reuters, Lurie said sweeps were a tool for the city to combat homelessness and promised to stand up 1,500 emergency shelter beds in his first six months in office.Lurie is an heir to the Levi Strauss & Co fortune through his mother, Mimi, who wed Peter Haas when Lurie was a child. Peter Haas, a great-grandnephew of Levi Strauss, was a longtime CEO of the iconic clothing company who died in 2005.Both the Levi’s name and Haas family philanthropic foundations are deeply embedded in San Francisco’s history and identity.Lurie’s father, Brian Lurie, is a rabbi and longtime former executive director of the San Francisco-based Jewish Community Federation. More