The race to succeed Ed Lee as San Francisco’s mayor is already heating up, two years before the 2019 election. One of the frontrunners is Mark Leno, who served as a supervisor, state senator, and state assemblyman. Leno, who declined to challenge Lee in the last go-around, is reportedly tapping Lee’s campaign advisors for a 2019 run.
In February, Leno told the Chronicle’s Beth Spotswood, “I am 100 percent sure that I will be running for Mayor of San Francisco in 2019 — as sure as I am that Hillary won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, that 3–5 million fraudulent votes were not cast, and that this new president is a dangerous liar.” At a late-March panel discussion held by KQED and The Commonwealth Club, Leno sounded very much the candidate, again highlighting his eagerness
to oppose the president’s agenda in San Francisco.
Meanwhile, 415 Media blogger Rich Lieberman suggests that Leno could be joined in the race by Angela Alioto, former supervisor and president of the Board of Supervisors; she ran unsuccessfully in the 2003 mayoral race. He says that when he asked her about the election, she said, “I keep all my options open,” which isn’t exactly a candidacy announcement.
