Phew! After a long election night (and a few beers and espresso shots), Power Play is slightly sleep deprived but ready to dive into what went down — and, more important, what it all means for the November general election. 

Now that the primary is behind us, barring a few outstanding races, victorious candidates are looking toward the Nov. 3 day of reckoning.

Here are the questions we’ll be asking in the months ahead. 

What will be the deal breaker in the Scott Wiener versus Connie Chan battle for Nancy Pelosi’s seat?

Hannah Wiley: Can Chan woo enough Saikat Chakrabarti voters to consolidate her base and overcome Wiener’s commanding primary lead? That’s her best path to victory. But lefty Chakrabarti voters are unlikely to transfer their support on a one-to-one basis, despite Chan’s claim to the progressive lane. Wiener is considered the moderate in the race, but anywhere else in the country, he’d be a far-left progressive. Many of his policy priorities, like protecting transgender Americans and safeguarding immigrant communities, will also attract Chakrabarti voters in the general election. And YIMBY supporters of Chakrabarti could take issue with Chan’s housing record, making them more likely than not to support Wiener. 

Han Li: I was writing a story just now about how the Great Highway fight could come back on the November ballot, even though many people want to move on. The divisive issue could end up driving turnout on the west side in support of Chan. And if you look at the June map, Chan did very well in west-side neighborhoods. 

Joe Fitzergerald Rodriguez: I’ve been talking to insiders all day about the electoral maps. Like Han noted, most were surprised that Chan took such a lead on the west side, even in voting precincts Wiener carried in his 2016 state Senate race. That’s troubling for the senator. Everyone is speculating about how much support Pelosi will bring Chan in the general election. Also, will we see the Pac Heights crowd turn on the donor spigot for Pelosi’s chosen successor? That could help her keep pace with Wiener’s fundraising momentum. Early on, Wiener’s supporters assumed Chakrabarti would be the more formidable general election opponent. They failed to consider how much of Wiener’s coalition Chan could chip away at. 

Assuming Tom Steyer stays in third place, is there anything interesting we can expect in the Xavier Becerra versus Steve Hilton race for governor? 

HW: Let’s start with what won’t be interesting. Becerra relying on an anti-Trump message to easily trounce a Trump-endorsed Republican. 

Hilton is unlikely — OK,  really unlikely — to win in November. But he is charismatic and well-versed in policy and — gasp! — has some interesting points on whether Democrats’ one-party rule in Sacramento has meaningfully improved the lives of California’s nearly 40 million residents. Voters deserve to hear real policy differences between the two top candidates to make an informed choice based on substantive debates that extend beyond the White House’s drama du jour. Now, that would be interesting. 

John Mulholland: I think this race will come alive. Hilton will bring truckloads of outsider energy, in contrast to Becerra’s insider low-energy. Hilton will put the Democrats’ 16-year one-party rule on trial throughout the campaign — will Becerra’s low-key defense play well? Hilton is a policy nerd, a polished media performer and a bit of a firecracker, while Becerra, a cautious career technocrat, brings decidedly less wattage. It’s an outside shot, but if the polls tighten, will the GOP roll out the big guns (nonallergens like Marco Rubio) in search of a huge national political scalp? If they get blown away in the House, and potentially the Senate too, the California governor’s race would be a hell of a consolation prize.

We know Mayor Daniel Lurie and his moderate world had a great night. Is this the death knell of the progressive movement in San Francisco?

JFR: That’s a question reporters ask nearly every election. The answer is: it depends. Evictions were their issue du jour for decades, from 2000 through the 2010s. When Supervisor Aaron Peskin was elected for the first time in 2000, he dubbed himself “the renter’s choice.” But evictions aren’t the San Francisco bogeyman they once were. Instead, people can’t afford the rent in the first place. Progressives are slowly adapting to that, which you can see in the likes of Supervisor Myrna Melgar and, arguably, Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who isn’t team progressive but is a YIMBY who embraces some progressive principles. There may be some hope for progressives’ old message to resonate again: As our colleague Jesse Alejandro Cottrell reported, evictions just hit a 10-year high. Otherwise, they’ll need to find a new message to show how their vision for San Francisco contrasts with Lurie’s boosterism. 

Gabe Greschler: It does feel like progressives have a Sisyphean effort before them in terms of winning back some turf. What should be an issue that can win on — affordability — doesn’t appear to be working for them in the case of Prop. D. And, of course, they face mountains of cash. I think there’s going to be a lot of soul-searching in the next couple of months and years.

JM: Maybe San Francisco is about to welcome a new type of progressive. Forget the storied, romantic, insurgent figures of the past. At the time of writing, Steyer has an outside shot at making the gubernatorial runoff — arguably the most progressive, anti-business candidate in the gubernatorial field and one who polled surprisingly well in SF. In fact, he won SF. Maybe progressives do have a future in the city after all — provided they’re the type that they can drop $250 million on a self-funded campaign. “I Left My Wallet in San Francisco” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

HL: When a popular moderate mayor, the moderate-leaning San Francisco Democratic Party, and tech-backed GrowSF are aligned on everything in a low-turnout election, they win everything. (The establishment!)

What does Tuesday’s election tell us about how some closely watched propositions are going to do, like Lurie’s parcel tax to save Muni and Wiener’s regional sales tax for Bay Area transit?

GG: This, to me, is one of the most interesting things to watch in the months to come. These propositions are incredibly high stakes for the city and region, and the rejection of Prop. C. and the potential failure of Prop. D shows voters’ hesitancy to approve taxes. 

HW: It’s a good thing these props are on the November ballot, when voter turnout is much higher than in primary elections.

JFR: Turnout is looking a bit better than it seemed on Election Day, so watchers are expecting the gap between “yes” and “no” in some of the propositions to shrink. If the success of the earthquake bond, Prop. A, is any indication, Lurie will hypnotize the electorate through his Instagram reels, and everyone will mark “yes” for the transit props in November.

What was the quality of the spreads at last night’s parties?

GG: I didn’t indulge in any of Steyer’s impressive array of appetizers, except for a small pizza-flavored pastry that was handed to me by a server at the end of the night.

HW: Wiener’s staff was passing around sheet cake before the start of his party at campaign headquarters in the Castro — one marble, and one lemon with strawberry. 

JFR: I bopped between a few parties. Prop. A’s shindig at Original Joe’s featured some snazzy-looking sliders, Prop. D’s party at The Rustic had a full-on buffet spread that looked mighty tasty. The Working Families Party had it tough — they had the biggest party by far, so they stuck with classic election-night pizza. It was all empty boxes by the time I got there for the second ballot drop. 

JM: I don’t know about the election night parties, but the SF Standard offices had a mountain of delicious pizza. In fact, so much that it might last until the November election.

Got tips? Send to us at [email protected].

HOT PARTY GOSS: It was a night full of highs, lows, and stressed-out campaign teams. 

GG: At the Steyer campaign party, held at the Regency Ballroom on Van Ness Avenue, staffers were unusually cagey about reporters exiting the press pen and at times appeared to create a wall around the candidate. I started exiting the designated press area for the bathroom only to be asked where I was going. Steyer declined interviews on election night … so much for being the candidate who answers tough questions (opens in new tab)!

HW: The most passionate supporter I met at Wiener’s campaign celebration was Lynne Newhouse Segal, who rushed into the headquarters about 30 minutes before the party started to leave him a note of encouragement. 

“I’ve known Scott for a long time,” said Segal, mother of Ned Segal, Lurie’s chief of housing and economic policy. “He’s so smart, so honest, so hardworking.” 

Segal was visibly annoyed by what she described as “very negative things” she had heard in the race, alluding to mailers sent by Chakrabarti’s campaign criticizing Wiener’s position on Israel’s war in Gaza.

“There’s a lot of dog-whistle stuff I’ve gotten in the mail that is very antisemitic. Very NIMBY,” she said. 

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) joined the party to cheer on her fellow YIMBY statehouse champion. She brought her two daughters, including 5-year-old Elly, who had her moment of fame as a newborn in 2020 when Wicks brought her to the Assembly floor in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic to cast a critical vote on a housing bill after she was denied proxy voting power (opens in new tab) by then-Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. The ordeal set off a scandal over how moms are treated in the Capitol (opens in new tab).  

Wicks may not have asked for payback, but she got it last night when Rendon’s campaign for state superintendent of public instruction barely cracked 8% of the vote in early results (opens in new tab). 

JFR: Early in the night, before the first ballots dropped, I had a hunch Chan would come in strong. Chakrabarti’s uncharacteristically caustic fit on social media over the AIPAC donations to a pro-Chan PAC and some confident comments by Chan the previous week had me thinking they both had seen poll numbers that weren’t made public. 

So when I saw Chan at the Prop. A party at Original Joe’s, just past 6:30, I asked her if she was ready to tell a bunch of people “I told you so” after they so quickly counted her out at the beginning of her campaign. “I don’t think I need to say any of that, because I think the poll numbers will say that for me,” Chan said. 

At the Working Families Party and Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club party at El Rio, you never would have guessed that progressives lost supervisor races or were behind in ballot measure vote counts. When Jane Kim and Chan took the stage, the dancing, screaming and pure adulation felt like a rock concert. 

And win or lose, Chan said, she would make one call at the end of the night for sure, to Pelosi. “I think that I owe it to her,” Chan said. On that much, most folks would agree.