Can Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie be San Francisco's change agent?

A man in suit and tie at a lectern labeled Daniel Lurie Mayor-Elect speaks at a crowded news conference.

By Hannah WileyStaff Writer

Nov. 21, 2024 3 AM PT

SAN FRANCISCO — In his victory speech three days after winning election, surrounded by hundreds of supporters in Chinatown, mayor-elect Daniel Lurie declared a new day in San Francisco.

“Your call for accountable leadership, service and change has been heard,” Lurie, 47, said to great cheers and applause.

That same enthusiasm vaulted Lurie, a centrist Democrat who has never held elected office, to an upset victory this month in his mayoral bid against incumbent London Breed and three other City Hall veterans.

Lurie’s opponents underestimated his appeal, calling out his lack of political experience as a disqualifying factor when it came to leading a landmark American city known for its tangled bureaucracy and Machiavellian politics.

It turns out his status as the nonpolitician is exactly why voters like him.

In an election seen as a referendum on the city’s post-pandemic struggles with homelessness and street crime, Lurie pitched himself as a change agent who could lead San Francisco into an era of recovery.

He has promised to make public safety his priority, including plans to declare a fentanyl state of emergency on his first day in office. He wants to “get tough” on drug dealers, as well as homeless people who refuse to accept shelter or treatment. And he vows to reinvigorate the downtown economy with art and a bevy of new businesses.

In the end, Lurie won 55% of San Francisco’s ranked-choice vote against Breed’s 45%, as of this week’s count.

“I entered this race not as a politician, but as a dad who couldn’t explain to my kids what they were seeing on our streets,” Lurie said. “In our house, when you love something as much as we love San Francisco, you fight for it.”

The last time San Francisco elected a mayor without prior government experience was five years after the 1906 earthquake devastated the city. In an election night speech to donors and campaign volunteers at a music venue in the Mission, Lurie drew comparisons to that catastrophe and the “inflection point” San Francisco faces today.

Turning the city around, he said, requires a “new approach.”

But even as a political newcomer, Lurie is far from an outsider.

Lurie was born into a prominent Jewish family. His father, Brian Lurie, was a rabbi and community leader. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mother, Miriam Haas, married Peter Haas, the great-grandnephew of Levi Strauss, founder of the renowned
denim company. Peter Haas, a top Levi’s executive, became Lurie’s stepfather. He died in 2005, leaving Lurie and his mother as heirs to the vast family fortune.

“You need to give credit where credit is due. ... They were successfully able to position the heir to the Levi Strauss fortune as an outsider,” said Eric Jaye, a Democratic political consultant who worked on an independent expenditure committee backing one of Lurie’s opponents, Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin.

Lurie’s personal wealth buoyed his candidacy. He funneled nearly $9 million of his own money into his campaign, while his mother contributed an additional $1 million to an independent expenditure committee backing his election. His brother gave $150,000 to the committee, and his father gave $25,000, according to campaign finance records. The family’s combined spending helped make the 2024 mayor’s race one of the most expensive in modern history.

The city’s tech sector also played an influential role, infusing millions more into independent committees that overwhelmingly benefited Lurie, Breed and former supervisor Mark Farrell — all moderate Democrats whom tech titans saw as their best options to move San Francisco politics more to the center.

It was a marked shift for a sector that has largely stayed out of local politics, but whose leaders have grown frustrated with what they see as dysfunctional governance.

Lurie received a bachelor’s degree in political science at Duke University and a master’s in public policy at UC Berkeley. In 2005, he founded Tipping Point, a Bay Area nonprofit that has raised more than $400 million for community organizations focused on job training, housing and early childhood initiatives.

Before Tipping Point, Lurie met his wife, Becca Prowda, while the two were working in New York at another poverty-focused nonprofit, the Robin Hood Foundation. Prowda is now a high-ranking aide to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Lurie doesn’t minimize the role of his family’s wealth in his successes. But he also credits his family for inspiring a life of service. He said his dad, as a longtime executive director of the Bay Area’s Jewish Community Federation, assisted people living in poverty and fleeing persecution. His mom is an advocate for early childhood education to help balance the scales for low-income youth. The Haas family has a long tradition of philanthropy.

“I ask everybody to look at what I’ve done with my career. It’s always been about serving this community, bringing people with means into the fold and making them realize that we need to provide opportunities for everybody,” Lurie said. “Anytime a door has been opened for me, I brought as many people through that door as possible.”

Still, when it comes to being mayor, some of those most familiar with San Francisco’s political scene question whether he’s ready. Although most everyone agrees Lurie is a nice guy, they aren’t sure he’s got the knuckles and elbows it can take to lead.

“He’s been a topic for quite a while now,” said Susie Tompkins Buell, a longtime Democratic donor who backed Breed. “I’ve never heard anyone speak ill of him. It’s always been complimentary. It’s just that he has no experience.”

Buell said Lurie’s family is “very philanthropic,” and that it’s clear Lurie shares those values.

But when it comes to politics, “you have to learn on the ground,” Buell said. “You got to learn how to dance and fight at the same time, and make very serious decisions that are going to make you not popular.”

Among the decisions ahead that could lose Lurie a popularity contest: tackling a budget crisis that could require deep cuts across departments; stabilizing a financially unstable city schools system; and curbing an addiction crisis that resulted in more than 800 fatal overdoses last year.

“He has to get up and running and master one of the toughest jobs in America with no experience doing that job,” said Jaye, the political consultant.

People who have worked with Lurie at Tipping Point and on the campaign said it would be a mistake to underestimate him. They say he is a hard worker and effective leader who knows how to build coalitions across the ideological spectrum.

“He’s an incredibly nice guy. But don’t let that fool you,” said Sam Cobbs, who took over as chief executive of Tipping Point in 2020 after Lurie stepped down. “He’s an incredibly intense guy that holds people accountable. He just does it in a nice way.”

Is that such a bad thing?

“Who wants to be represented by a mean, nasty, vindictive mayor?” said Tyler Law, Lurie’s campaign strategist.

Lurie won because voters were sick of the “pettiness and toxicity” of San Francisco politics, Law said, and wanted a mayor focused on results.

Lurie’s winning strategy included daily walks through different neighborhoods to talk with shop owners, families and residents eager for someone to listen to their struggles. His campaign knocked on tens of thousands of doors, and used some of Lurie’s money to buy TV ads and flood mailboxes with campaign material.

“For a year and a half, he showed up in every neighborhood, every day. He listened and talked to everybody he ran into,” said Dan Newman, a strategist who ran the independent expenditure committee supporting Lurie. “He was willing to meet everybody, to listen to people, to disagree politely when needed, and when you saw the results ... virtually every San Franciscan either loves Daniel Lurie or likes and respects him.”

Lurie said he will keep walking San Francisco’s streets as mayor, similar to how the late-Sen. Dianne Feinstein approached the job after she became mayor during another period of crisis: after the 1978 assassinations of her predecessor, George Moscone, and Supervisor Harvey Milk.

“The city’s going to see a mayor walking the streets demanding accountability, demanding action and serving the people again,” he said.

And like Feinstein, Lurie plans to make time for family. He said he hopes to be home at least one night a week for dinner with his children, who also have busy schedules. His daughter, 13-year-old Taya, has ballet classes six days a week and is preparing for a performance of the “Nutcracker.” His son, Sawyer, 10, spends weekends playing in a baseball league.

Feinstein, like Lurie, was part of San Francisco’s wealthy elite, the wife of financier Richard Blum. But Feinstein “was a great mayor because she never backed down,” Jaye said. If Feinstein is Lurie’s inspiration, he’ll need her grit and determination in the face of sharp opposition. That, and a staff of smart people who can help him “realize his vision, but also understand all the many, many, many political landmines that await him,” Jaye added.

On Monday, Lurie unveiled a transition team to help him prepare for taking office. The co-chairs include Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI, former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs and a list of high-profile Democrats who have served in city government. Lurie is already navigating some criticism of his choices, after the San Francisco Standard noted that OpenAI has been lobbying the city for tax breaks.

Lurie said he isn’t naive about the challenges ahead, or how difficult the job might get. But he’s confident he’s the right person to help the city write a new chapter.

“That’s the mandate that I was given by the people of San Francisco,” he said. “They want results. They want action. And I’m all in.”