Daniel Lurie Sweeps Into Mayor’s Office Promising ‘Change,’ But It’s Unclear What His Administration Will Look Like

The Mayor-Elect of San Francisco Daniel Lurie is still a walking question mark in many respects, but there are some educated guesses on how the wealthy heir and nonprofit executive is going to govern and try to fulfill his campaign promises.

Relative political neophyte and Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie is now the incoming Mayor of San Francisco , winning a five-way race largely thanks to the $8.6 million of his own personal wealth that he threw at the campaign, but also because he kept a clean image with no scandals since becoming a candidate 14 months ago .

Whereas Mayor London Breed has been largely unpopular the last couple years, and the final months of her campaign were dogged by scandals at her signature programs , and the Ricky Pearsall shooting that kept SF crime in the headlines. Candidate Mark Farrell had a drip-drip-drip of regularly dropping financial misconduct revelations that seemed to take a toll on his support .

Lurie's win was more decisive than expected, with the Chronicle noting he's at 56.2%-43.8% over Breed in the latest vote count. He ran a fairly vanilla campaign, with massive volumes of advertising , and it worked out quite well for him.

Daniel Lurie was not well-known until he announced his candidacy and carpet-bombed the city with ads, and he has no experience in elected office. He is of course a Levi Strauss fortune heir, ran the debatably effective nonprofit Tipping Point for about 15 years, and led the San Francisco Bay Area Super Bowl 50 Host Committee back in 2013. That's a rather thin resume for someone about to become mayor of a city with 800,000 residents and a $16 billion budget , but Lurie touts his "outsider" status and lack of City Hall connections as a strength.

And this time, the inheritee inherits a mess. He's walking into an $800 million budget deficit , a moribund downtown office vacancy situation that's throttling tax revenue, and an incoming President Trump who will be as hostile to San Francisco as possible.

KRON4 covers Lurie's campaign promises and notes that he says he'll add thousands more homeless shelter beds, declare a state of emergency on the fentanyl crisis, hire more police officers, and build denser housing on transit corridors. That's not really different than what Breed and Farrell were offering, but Lurie seems to think his outsider know-how will bring him more success at these objectives.

And his lack of track record makes it very uncertain who he'll pick to lead various city departments. Will he keep SFPD Chief Bill Scott around? Lurie has not said. He told the Chronicle he will meet with Breed's current department heads and assess "whether or not they want to be there."

Lurie gave an acceptance speech Friday morning, surrounded by supporters. ""It is a beautiful day in San Francisco," Lurie said. "Your voices and your call for accountable leadership, service and change have been heard. I stand before you humbled and inspired with the great honor and privilege of serving you, the people of San Francisco, as your next mayor."

Lurie did not spell out too many specifics in his speech, but spoke of wanting a "safer and more affordable San Francisco," and wanting to address the drug crisis. He said that after hundreds of meet-and-greet events and his team knocking on over 140,000 doors across the city, it's clear that "hope is alive and well in San Francisco," but, he added, "hope is not enough... they have to be drivers of actions and results."

As for Lurie's specific vision, he gave KRON4 some outlines in an interview. "We're going to be cleaning our streets," Lurie told that outlet. "You're coming off the overpasses, you come down Sixth Street, it's going to be pristine. The first image of San Francisco when our visitors and our travelers come here, has got to be a city that is clean and safe and vibrant."

And he added he has no aspirations to higher office. "I don't want to do another political job after this. I'm doing this. I'm running for mayor for eight years and then I'm out," he said to KRON4.

That statement indicates he intends to run for reelection in 2028, or at least that's what he says now. But Lurie may learn over the next four years that money can buy you an election, but it cannot buy you success as Mayor of San Francisco.