It’s four against one in the race for the Sunset.

Candidates aiming to unseat District 4 Supervisor Alan Wong are uniting in a cunning strategic move targeting the mayor-backed incumbent.

City Hall staffer Natalie Gee, merchant leader Albert Chow, educator David Lee, and school administrator Jeremy Greco are condemning a political action committee that supports Wong and has received donations from conservative billionaire Jan Koum, cofounder of WhatsApp. Gee, Chow, and Greco held a press conference Thursday afternoon.

The SF Believes PAC this month received $250,000 from Koum, who is considered among the wealthiest donors supporting President Donald Trump (opens in new tab). Mission Local first reported (opens in new tab) on Koum’s donation.

According to federal filings, Koum donated $5 million to Make America Great Again Inc. before the 2024 presidential election and $1 million after Trump’s victory. Previously, he was a donor to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley when she was running in the Republican primary for president.

“MAGA billionaires like Jan Koum are not aligned with the priorities of working families in the Sunset,” said Gee, chief of staff to D10 Supervisor Shamann Walton. “Anyone who supports Donald Trump and his anti-immigrant, anti-worker, warmongering rhetoric should not have a say in our local elections here in San Francisco.

“You have to ask yourself why someone like that would be supporting Alan Wong,” she added.

The coordinated move by the four rivals appears part of an effort to overwhelm the sitting supervisor under the ranked-choice voting system. San Francisco’s supervisor races allow voters to rank candidates in order of preference, which can help a consensus candidate consolidate support. However, it can also allow challengers to join forces by urging voters to adopt a 1-2-3 ranking strategy that leaves out the front-runner.

While the four D4 candidates are not yet formally pursuing this strategy, the press conference signals their unity against Wong’s reelection bid.

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SF Believes was started by the same people behind a 2024 PAC that supported Mayor Daniel Lurie. It has raised more than $1 million (opens in new tab) and spent $213,000 supporting Wong and $21,000 opposing Gee through mailers, according to financial disclosures.

The Sunset has seen a turbulent few years since the 2024 Proposition K fight over the Great Highway, which led to the recall of Supervisor Joel Engardio. After a 200-hour fiasco surrounding the appointment and resignation of Isabella “Beya” Alcaraz, Lurie turned to Wong as his backup for the supervisor role. The former community college board member will need to run in June to keep his interim seat and again in November for a full four-year term that starts in January 2026.

“This is a six-month job, and it shouldn’t cost close to a million dollars to get elected,” said Greco, calling out the billionaire support for Wong. 

Representatives of SF Believes did not respond to requests for comment. Wong’s campaign, by law, cannot coordinate with the PAC. Koum made his donation under a group called “Manzanita Action Fund”; an attorney linked to the donation filing did not respond to a request for comment.

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Lee, who is active in the Chinese community and has run for office multiple times, said he had fought for the Sunset against PG&E and Recology monopolies and is now fighting against out-of-state billionaires trying to purchase the supervisor seat.

“The Sunset deserves a supervisor who is accountable to this community, not to wealthy donors writing massive checks from afar. No billionaire should decide who represents the Sunset,” he said.

Chow, who was a leader in the movement to reopen the Great Highway to cars and recall Engardio, similarly said the election should be decided by residents.

“Our community has made it clear where we stand,” Chow said. “We do not want big money deciding who represents us. That is how we have ended up with failed leadership, and we will not let it happen again.”