GrowSF counts its “common sense” midterm successes

The day after final Tuesday’s election, Sachin Agarwal and Steven Buss, who run the political motion committee GrowSF, have been all smiles, as a number of native points the group supported have been poised to move.

Driving the information: GrowSF’s midterm voter information was seen by about half of the 300,000 metropolis residents who forged their ballots final week, Buss estimated based mostly on web site visitors.

• The PAC’s largest win appears like it’s going to come from District 4, the place they backed Joel Engardio. If he holds off Gordon Mar, it might be the primary time a challenger has unseated an elected incumbent supervisor in over 20 years.
• GrowSF additionally endorsed District Lawyer Brooke Jenkins and District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey, in addition to holding JFK Drive car-free.

What they’re saying: “That is our second,” Agarwal advised Axios.

• Sure, however: GrowSF doubtless will not get its method on Prop. M (the vacant residence tax, which it opposed) or Prop. D (the hassle to streamline housing creation, which it supported). SF Mayor London Breed-appointed and GrowSF-endorsed Ann Hsu may additionally lose her seat on the varsity board.

Context: GrowSF, which launched in summer time of 2020, says it needs to “create a San Francisco that works for everybody,” with housing, transit, public faculties and public security as its prime priorities.

• Earlier this 12 months, the PAC advocated for recalling District Lawyer Chesa Boudin and three college board members, whom they known as “incompetent.”
• GrowSF can also be identified for its ties to the tech trade: Agarwal and Buss beforehand labored at Lyft and Google, respectively.

Why it issues: Supporting reasonable candidates and advocating for points like preserving outside leisure areas, seem like resonating with San Francisco voters based mostly on Nov. 8’s election outcomes.

• GrowSF additionally appears to have struck a chord with the town’s tech group. Whereas its founders say donors come from many backgrounds, most of GrowSF’s prime contributors are well-known tech figures, together with Chris Larsen (co-founder of the crypto firm Ripple) and Garry Tan (a enterprise capitalist who will quickly run Y Combinator).

Ryan Delk, CEO of schooling startup Primer, mentioned he contributed to GrowSF as a result of “there was nobody truly combating for what I felt like [most] of the folks that you simply meet in San Francisco need … [like] rising the housing provide, public security and making it simpler for small companies to open and function.”

The opposite aspect: The League of Pissed Off Voters, which authors one other well-known SF voter information, advised Axios it took situation with the ways GrowSF used to affect voters, calling Google search adverts that positioned the group’s information over its opponents’, deceptive.

• In the meantime, D5 Supervisor Dean Preston lately advised the SF Examiner he is involved with GrowSF’s “clumsy makes an attempt to intimidate, bully and silence political voices they disagree with” after they launched a marketing campaign to oust him in 2024.
• Preston, a Democratic Socialist, mentioned he wasn’t fazed by the hassle, claiming the group was “out of contact with the wants of our district.”

The underside line: “The pendulum in San Francisco is swinging again in the direction of a extra commonsense and pragmatic model of politics,” Tan advised Axios, including he thinks GrowSF has “been a driving drive behind this shift.”