Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie elected mayor of San Francisco | US election 2024

After years of negative headlines and post-pandemic economic struggles, San Francisco has chosen a wealthy Democratic outsider with no government experience to serve as the city’s new mayor.

Daniel Lurie, 47, is one of the heirs to the Levi Strauss jeans company fortune and previously spent 15 years as head of a San Francisco non-profit he founded. He defeated several Democratic challengers, including the current mayor, London Breed, in an election that was expected to break records for local campaign spending.

“I am deeply grateful to my incredible family, campaign team and all San Franciscans who voted for accountability, service and change,” Lurie said in a statement. “No matter who you supported in this election, we stand united in the fight for San Francisco’s future and a safer, more affordable city for all.”

Lurie poured more than $8 million of his own money into his campaign, while his billionaire mother, Mimi Haas, backed him with another $1 million. He will be the first mayor of San Francisco since 1911 to win office without previously serving in government, making him the city’s “least experienced mayor in a long time.” It was reported by the San Francisco Chronicle.

But the Chronicle also ended up endorsing Lurie, praising “balance between compassion and toughness” in his planned approach to dealing with San Francisco’s people struggling with homelessness, saying the city needed a change in leadership, making Lurie’s inexperience potentially worth the risk.

Lurie had touted his experience financing and building affordable housing at the Tipping Point Foundation as proof that he could lead San Francisco in the right direction.

San Francisco is dominated by Democrats, so the election was effectively between moderates and progressives, with voters focusing on pragmatic centrists. Lurie beat and will replace Breed, the city’s first black female mayor, who has led the city since 2018.

Breed, who was raised by her grandmother in a public housing development, conceded the race Thursday when it became clear she could not overcome deep voter discontent and followed Lurie, a philanthropist and anti-poverty non-profit founder.

“At the end of the day, this job is bigger than any one person, and what matters is that we keep moving this city forward,” Breed said, adding that she had called Lurie to congratulate him. “I know we are both committed to improving this city we love.”

The Northern California city has come to represent the challenges facing many large American cities, which have struggled with an uneven economic recovery and rising cost of living since the Covid-19 pandemic. Prominent issues across all candidates’ campaigns were housing and crime, even with a crime rate of 32%.

San Francisco has the highest median household income among major US cities, but homelessness remains difficult. Since a Supreme Court ruling in June, Breed’s administration has been actively sweeping up homeless encampments.

Her critics pointed out that sweeps are temporary solutions and that the city has not done enough to offer shelter to its homeless population.

In an interview with Reuters, Lurie said sweeps were a tool for the city to fight homelessness and promised to provide up to 1,500 emergency shelter beds in his first six months in office.

Lurie is heir to the Levi Strauss & Co fortune through his mother, Mimi, who married Peter Haas when Lurie was a child. Peter Haas, a great-grandson of Levi Strauss, was the longtime CEO of the iconic clothing company who died in 2005.

Both the Levi’s name and the Haas family’s philanthropic foundations are deeply embedded in San Francisco’s history and identity.

Lurie’s father, Brian Lurie, is a rabbi and longtime former executive director of the San Francisco-based Jewish Community Federation.