Anthony Sacco stated that strategy was not interesting to him.
“I don’t desire a ‘fighter’ for governor,” he wrote. “As Gavin Newsom’s conduct demonstrates, too usually being a ‘fighter’ means looking for media protection just for the aim of advancing their political careers.”
To make sure, Newsom has deployed California Freeway Patrol officers to scale back road crime and signed a landmark reform of the state’s environmental legislation in June to spur extra housing manufacturing. Likewise, town of San José has joined lawsuits in opposition to the Trump administration, and Mahan has overtly criticized the president’s deportation coverage.
However Mahan’s tenure as mayor has been outlined by centrist pragmatism. He cruised to re-election final yr by touting a deal with lowering unsheltered homelessness and crime and cleansing the streets of the state’s third-largest metropolis. Whereas Mahan has sparred usually with native progressives (and Newsom, throughout final yr’s marketing campaign over tough-on-crime Proposition 36), he has largely prevented partisan fights and barely feedback on headlines from Washington.
His platform of “common sense” politics was echoed by Daniel Lurie, who received San Francisco’s mayoral race in 2024 and has acquired approval rankings over 70% months within the job. Lurie, too, has steered away from speaking about Trump and as an alternative has trumpeted enterprise openings and financial restoration.
Vinnakota, who ran mayoral campaigns for Lurie in San Francisco and Loren Taylor in Oakland, stated the boundaries of a mayor’s energy, the nonpartisan nature of their position and the implications of incurring Trump’s wrath can partially clarify why Lurie and Mahan haven’t adopted Newsom’s technique of confrontation with the president.
“Mayors are incentivized to be extra pragmatic, even cautious, like Lurie and Mahan have been of their rhetoric,” Vinnakota stated. “However the problem for these mayors is that pragmatism on this second, for lots of Democrats, can appear like appeasement.”
However in Oakland, newly elected Mayor Barbara Lee has charted a barely completely different path. Whereas Lee has targeted a lot of her early work on homelessness and blight, she held a press convention final month to answer Trump’s bashing of Oakland as he hinted at deploying Nationwide Guard troops to cities past Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
“Proper now we now have to take care of our unified posture and ensure we shield all people — protected, safe — maintain the peace, and push again and resist what’s happening,” Lee instructed KQED Discussion board this week. “We’ve got to proceed, although, on the similar time, work on making our metropolis higher.”
The November election will convey new assessments for the Democratic pragmatists and pugilists.
Newsom is constructing his Proposition 50 marketing campaign to reflect his profitable anti-recall effort, with the hope that Democratic voters will prioritize breaking GOP management within the Home of Representatives over protecting independently-drawn congressional strains.
In the meantime, in Mahan’s yard, Santa Clara County voters will resolve on Measure A, a gross sales tax enhance that supporters are billing as a chance to push again in opposition to Trump for his social security internet cuts that may slice $500 million from the county finances subsequent yr.
Mahan stated he’ll vote for Proposition 50 however received’t marketing campaign for it. He’s undecided on Measure A, explaining his help can be contingent on the county promising to fund extra of his priorities — together with supportive providers for individuals in homeless shelters and inpatient remedy amenities.
Requested concerning the anti-Trump messaging more likely to propel the 2 November measures, Mahan stated he understood “the cathartic worth of pushing again in opposition to an administration that’s guaranteeing coverage selections that fly within the face of what I believe are fairly dominant values in California.”
“On the similar time … we have to get past the performative and the symbolic and what could really feel cathartic to the factor that I really hear on daily basis from residents, which is ‘I need authorities to make my life higher,’” he stated.
