San Francisco Was Having Its Fun Becoming More Moderate. But The Far-Left Crazies Are Storming Back
San Francisco’s left-leaning reputation is well deserved. But in the years since COVID-19 lockdowns, San Francisco’s politics have moderated.
These gains could be reversed next year. Moderate Democrats in San Francisco are “piling up cash to prepare for a progressive wave.” said Policy. Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, a nonprofit focused on public safety and fiscal responsibility, told the news outlet it has raised $10 million to fight the coming surge. These funds will be used to “prevent progressive candidates from regaining power at City Hall and defeat the threat of a ‘CEO tax’ that unions imposed in the June primary election,” Politico reports. consider leave the state. (RELATED: Another California Icon Flees – Public Storage Abandons Golden State in Favor of Texas)
Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator, predicted in December 2025 that the tax “will kill startups and innovation in California.
San Francisco’s moderate change began shortly after the COVID-19 confinements.
Voters recalled then-prosecutor Chesa Boudin in 2022, two and a half years after he took office. Boudin, the son of members of the Weather Underground, was one of the most left-leaning prosecutors in the country. Frustrations with car break-ins, burglaries, homelessness and general disorder had reached a boiling point. Neighbors for a better San Francisco boasts that it is “[l]» “The successful recall” of Boudin, “a catalyst for the city in the restoration of public security”.
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 23: Protesters hold signs during an anti-ICE demonstration in front of San Francisco City Hall on October 23, 2025 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Voters recalled three members of the San Francisco school board in 2022. These members had concentrate on high-profile left-wing actions, like renaming 44 schools, and they decided to get rid of merit-based admissions policies for Lowell High School. Neighbors for a Better San Francisco says “[f]endless and helped engineer the successful recall of three school board members who failed our students, bankrupted our school district, and kept our schools closed. (RELATED: Just when we thought San Francisco’s taxpayer waste problem was serious, they totally outdo themselves)
San Franciscans elected Daniel Lurie mayor in 2024. Lurie, heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, had earned the approval of the San Francisco Briones Society Republican, a center-right political group.
Far left San Francisco candidates may be hoping to ride hysteria about President Donald Trump all the way to City Hall.
“It’s hard for the center to hold up in a place like this,” Oversight Board Chairman Rafael Mandelman told Politico. “We have pragmatists and utopians.”
The upcoming election will test the short-term memory of San Franciscans. Will they remember their own discontent under the leadership of the far left? Or will they succumb to righteous amnesia and vote for soft-on-crime, anti-Trump candidates?
Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatSandovalDC
