San Francisco, CA
Column: In San Francisco, a political tremor — the rise of Democratic moderation
SAN FRANCISCO — These are soul-searching days for Democrats, a time of reckoning and self-criticism as they try to comprehend why they lost Congress and the White House and struggle to find their way back from political purgatory.
The examination extends even so far as San Francisco, a place famed for its liberalism and smugness, where the inward-looking reflection began even before Trump’s restoration to the White House.
In 2022, voters cast out three uber-progressive members of the school board, who seemed more intent on symbolic gestures, such as renaming public schools to erase the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Paul Revere, than student achievement. A few months later, the district attorney, Chesa Boudin, was recalled in response to his perceived bleeding-heart approach to public safety.
Continuing apace, voters in November elected a political newcomer and relative moderate, Daniel Lurie, as mayor and punctuated the sentiment by gifting him a more simpatico Board of Supervisors at San Francisco’s baroque City Hall.
In the same vein, the city’s Democratic Party, not exactly a pro-MAGA choir, has moved closer to the middle, electing a leader who sees Trump’s election and improved standing in this blue bastion as one of those moments when red lights flash and sirens are blaring.
“One of the issues with the Democratic Party right now is that so much of party politics, especially at the local level, has been largely performative and not really relevant to the everyday lives of working people,” said the local party chair, Nancy Tung. “And I think we’re seeing the backlash now nationally.”
San Francisco is not about to turn into a hillier version of Kansas, or become Alabama with views of the Pacific. Trump received 6,000 more votes here in November than he did four years ago and boosted his support by 2.5%. Still, he lost to Kamala Harris, the city’s former district attorney, by nearly 65 percentage points.
Tung’s politics should also be put in some perspective. She checks all the Democratic boxes — pro-choice, anti-Trump and on — and laughingly jokes that in many places she’d be called a communist. But Tung is a centrist by San Francisco standards, and the city’s political pendulum, which has long oscillated between left and far left, has clearly swung her direction.
People “can call me whatever they want,” she said over lunch in the city’s Mission District. “I think government should work for people, and at the local level there’s some really basic things that should not be controversial, right? Every community deserves good public schools. They deserve safe streets, clean sidewalks. Government that works, that’s not overly bureaucratic … that’s not putting giant special interests ahead of everyday people.”
Tung, 50, is the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants. She grew up in Southern California, in Arcadia, before moving to the Bay Area, where she has spent most of her career as a prosecutor. Her work in the San Francisco D.A.’s office focuses on hate crimes.
Tung began her political activism fairly recently, after Trump’s upset victory in 2016. On a trip to Washington, she had planned to celebrate Hillary Clinton’s historic election as America’s first female president. Instead, she had an ugly cry at the National Portrait Gallery, seated before a rendering of women who’ve served on the Supreme Court.
A few weeks later Tung was back in the capital, marching on the eve of Trump’s first inauguration with bullhorn in hand. At home, she redoubled her political engagement by signing up with one of San Francisco’s myriad Democratic clubs. Eventually, though, Tung grew estranged, feeling marginalized not because she was a woman or Asian American but because other Democrats wouldn’t accept her comparative moderation.
In 2019, she ran unsuccessfully for district attorney, losing to Boudin. The next year, the Board of Supervisors scuttled Tung’s nomination to the Police Commission because, in the climate following George Floyd’s murder, she was seen as too pro-police.
Slowly, however, the political winds shifted, as they often do. By 2022, it was the leadership of the San Francisco Democratic Party that seemed out of step. Among other moves, the party opposed the school board recalls, which 70% of voters supported, and the ouster of Boudin, who was handily turned out of office. In 2024, Tung led a centrist slate that took control of the party.
Over lunch at a favorite Indian-Pakistani restaurant, she described her goals between now and the end of her term in April 2028. Tung’s demeanor, as one might expect of a prosecutor, was no-nonsense. Arms crossed. Brow creased.
The most important thing, Tung suggested, was moving away from abstractions and indulgences and addressing issues that touch voters’ daily lives.
Tung cited a resolution the local party passed some years ago opposing the use of child labor in Africa’s chocolate trade. A terrible thing, yes. But why, she wondered, were Democrats in San Francisco devoting time to the matter? “It makes people think you’re out of touch,” Tung said. “Why is there something about child labor in another country and not something about how we’re treating children here?”
That may be reductive, but the point is well taken. If the last election showed anything, it’s that high-minded principles, like standing up for democratic norms, are less important to many voters than, say, the cost of gasoline and groceries.
Democrats, Tung said forking a serving of rice and lentils, need to “actually show people our value, like what we’re doing in the community. … Are you helping feed people? Are you helping clothe people? Are you helping to connect people to services? Are you helping people cut through red tape at City Hall?”
Inevitably, the conversation turned to Trump and fears the country is goose-stepping its way to dictatorship.
Yes, Tung said, party leaders like herself can and should speak out and help channel Democratic outrage. There’s information and resources to share with individuals and groups, such as immigrants, who may be targeted by punitive policies. “Can we provide support to people who are impacted? Yes we can,” Tung said. “Can we provide a forum for people who want to speak out? Yes, you can do that, too.”
But the real resistance, Tung said, will have to come from elected officials, from members of Congress, from attorneys general and others fighting the Trump administration in court.
She didn’t say it, but the reality is if Democrats really hope to stop Trump’s excesses and his bulldozing of federal programs, they’ll have to take back some measure of power in Washington.
And there’s a great deal of work to be done.
San Francisco, CA
Retired San Francisco firefighter dies from lung cancer after Blue Shield denies treatment claims
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — The retired San Francisco firefighter at the center of a bitter insurance fight has lost his battle against cancer.
Ken Jones passed away Saturday, 14 months after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.
PREVIOUS REPORT: City asked to intervene after SF firefighter’s stage 4 lung cancer treatment denied by Blue Shield
We first told you about Jones in January — when the 17-year veteran and supporters asked the City Commission for help.
The Fire Department’s insurance carrier, Blue Shield, denied coverage for some of his recommended treatments.
Ken Jones was 70 years old.
SF firefighters rally for retiree denied cancer treatment by Blue Shield as more come forward
“After we got some publicity, thank you, a Blue Shield physician reached out to Ken’s physician, and they worked out a different plan that Blue Shield would cover. It’s still an incomplete plan,” said Helen Horvath, Jones’ wife when ABC7 Eyewitness News spoke to her in January, 2026.
Since then, Jones’ story has led to an investigation into other cases, with the city’s mayor vowing to support firefighters.
According to San Francisco’s Health Service Board, about 5,000 city employees and retirees are insured by Blue Shield. Now, city leaders are asking anyone who has been denied cancer treatment to speak up.
Tony Stefani with the Cancer Prevention Foundation said firefighters with a cancer diagnosis have a 14% higher chance of dying than other cancer patients in the general population.
“Current statistics tell us that 65% of the men and women in our profession are going to contract some form of cancer in their lifetime. Some of them will be fatal,” Stefani said.
In a Statement Blue Shield said, in part: “For Medicare members, health plans must follow medical policy established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).”
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Few things are more valuable in the Bay Area than real estate. In San Francisco, the median house price is now over $2 million. Last month, at least seven houses in the city sold for $1 million over the asking price, and buyers regularly offer to pay in cash or waive contingencies to stay competitive. Yet there is one thing that remains even more valuable than a house, and possibly more valuable than money itself: stock in Anthropic or OpenAI.
Last week, 160 Noe Street, an Edwardian home in San Francisco’s desirable Duboce Triangle neighborhood, was listed for sale at $2.9 million—or the equivalent amount in Anthropic or OpenAI shares, as based on those companies’ current valuations. Rachel Swann, the listing agent, says she was inspired to set these unusual terms after meeting several Anthropic employees at an open house for a different property. “These people have a lot of paper wealth, but they don’t always have the liquidity to do things they want,” Swann says. Some of these employees were expecting to come into as much as $50 million from their Anthropic shares, and wondered if they could use that as leverage to buy a house, according to Swann. “This kept coming up over and over again.”
Swann’s listing is unconventional, but not singular. In April, an investment banker named Storm Duncan offered to exchange his Mill Valley home and an adjacent parcel of land for Anthropic shares. And in May, Vijay Chattha, who owns an agency that does PR for tech companies, listed his Healdsburg home for $2.5 million, or $2 million in Anthropic stock. “I want to sell my house, and I want to invest in Anthropic,” Chattha says. “Why not combine the two?
Chattha’s house—a three bed, three bath with a pool and a bocce court in a part of Sonoma County that abuts some of the region’s most famous wineries—also comes with coveted short-term rental status, allowing the owner to list it on platforms like Airbnb. Only a handful of properties in Healdsburg come with that status, and only about a dozen come up for sale in a given year.
Chattha is offering a $500,000 discount to Anthropic employees because he believes the value of Anthropic shares will grow faster than any other investment, and his vacation home in wine country is the best bargaining chip he has to try to access them. “If you look at Anthropic’s growth last year, it’s insane,” he says, noting the $380 billion valuation the company claimed in February. “Now they’re raising at $965 billion. That’s three X in like three months.” He added that he was open to exchanging the house for shares in Anthropic, but not OpenAI, because he prefers using Anthropic’s products.
The real estate listings come at a time when investors are salivating at the record-high valuations of Anthropic and OpenAI, and even those considered wealthy by Bay Area standards are feeling FOMO about the affluence that could come from these companies’ debuts on the stock market. (On Monday, Anthropic submitted paperwork for its initial public offering; OpenAI is also reportedly preparing to file in the coming months.) Despite the unprecedented valuations of these companies, many people believe their stock prices will only go up, and that anyone who gets a piece now could win the jackpot.
People are clamoring to buy equity in OpenAI and Anthropic on the secondary market, leading to a frenzy of transactions that may or may not be legitimate. As a result, Anthropic updated its policy around “unauthorized Anthropic stock sales” this spring, which notes that “if someone purports to sell Anthropic shares without proper board approval, that transaction is invalid.” A spokesperson for Anthropic pointed back to this policy when asked about the possibility of exchanging company shares for real estate.
Welcome to our running tally of Election Night results. Or, as this is California, well beyond tonight, as results continue to trickle in.
The first batch of results should arrive at 8:45 p.m., with three more to follow tonight. The Department of Elections has the breakdown.
San Francisco is voting in three special elections, for District 2 and District 4 supervisors and for a Board of Education member. Both supervisor races are referendums on housing, especially District 2, while the main backdrop of the D4 race is all the hot feelings around the fate of the Sunset Dunes Park (nee Great Highway).
The winners of all three special races will have to compete again in November for their seats.
Keeping it local, SF is also voting on four ballot measures. Prop A is for a bond to pay for an emergency water-system. B is for term limits. C and D are dueling measures related to the “overpaid CEO” tax. (Links go to our reporting on each race or issue; or click here for our Election 2026 page.)
Vote local, think national: Which two candidates will advance to the November election to replace Nancy Pelosi?
Statewide races include the primaries for governor, education superintendent, lieutenant governor, and much more.
Polls close soon. If you haven’t voted yet, find your polling station here.
Tuesday, June 2, 5:40 p.m.
Two and a half hours until our polls close. Before we go down the local rabbit hole, a reminder that other states have primary action today: New Jersey, Iowa, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Montana.
Why does it take so long to get results in California? CalMatters has you covered on that story. We shouldn’t expect a call tonight on the governor’s race.
The last big election was November 5, 2024. (Remember?) Ten days later, there were still races to call in San Francisco.
So if you’re waiting for the pundits (and maybe even us) to tell you What It All Means, you might have to wait a while.
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