By Calvin Welch, HANC Board Member

Jen Snyder, Dean Preston’s campaign manager (and now Legislative Aide), and Jim Stearns, Chesa Boudin's campaign consultant, joined HANC’s Anniversary general membership meeting in presenting an "inside look" into both campaigns.  Calvin Welch also presented "How the Haight Voted".

One of the interesting insights of the evening was presented by Stearns who pointed out that Preston actually finished the voting day AHEAD of Brown by some 31 votes (11,239 to 11,208) before the ranked choice count due to the fact that some 200 D5 voters cast no first place votes but cast votes only for second place. Preston out polled Brown in those Election Day "second votes” 120 to 37.  Stearns also stated that "Chesa did not win the ranked choice votes, he SURVIVED it" in that the majority of second place votes went to Loftus, once again showing how ranked choice voting tends to favor "moderate" candidates for the simple reason that there are usually more such candidates than left/progressives candidates.

Welch pointed out that Prop A, the $600 million housing bond, passed with the fewest votes of any housing bond in the City's  history - 143,000- and that it ran behind Prop E the measure for teacher housing by some 8,000 votes even though A massively outspent E.  The same was true in D5 with E getting some 600 more votes than did A.  Welch pointed out that the A campaign featured Supervisor Brown in D5 mailings and that may well have caused voters not to support it.  He pointed out that in the Haight-Ashbury precincts E out polled A by some 190 votes, almost exactly the 196 vote margin Preston beat Brown by in the same precincts.

Welch pointed out that while turnout was much higher in the Haight-Ashbury and D5 than Citywide, within the neighborhood turnout in the more moderate-voting Hill precincts (known in real estate circles as "Cole Valley") was the highest in the neighborhood at 56%.  However, the progressive voting "Flatland" precincts (Oak to Frederick) actually cast the most votes in the neighborhood, assuring Preston's win in the Haight-Ashbury.

Once again all four ballot measures recommended by HANC passed overwhelmingly in the neighborhood, giving HANC 54 victories for some 57 recommendations on ballot measures since 2010 for a rather astounding 95% success rate.

          HA 2019 TURNOUT