London Breed’s Asian American approval soars as she cracks down on crime

San Francisco Mayor London Breed has gone from being a verbal punching bag because of her inability to steer the city out of its pandemic downturn to a tough-on-crime candidate who is finally connecting with voters.

And it's making her fellow candidates very nervous.

Breed's job approval rating has jumped 13 percentage points, according to a recent poll by the San Francisco Chronicle.

That means Breed has pulled ahead of her challengers and has been ranked voters’ first pick in the November election. About 28% of likely voters polled from July 31 to Aug. 5 said they would either rank the incumbent mayor as their first choice or that they were leaning toward her. That is up from 18% in a similar poll taken in February.

In the February poll , Breed was in serious danger of losing out to challengers Mark Farrell, former mayor of San Francisco, and Daniel Lurie, the Levi Strauss heir. Twenty percent of likely voters ranked Farrell as their first choice, with Breed coming in at 18%. Lurie came in third with 16%, followed by Supervisor Ahsha Safai at 8%.

“People are noticing the work that we’re doing, and they are responding to it," Breed said at an event to announce endorsements by San Fransisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto, the city’s first Asian American sheriff, and other Asian American public safety leaders."I've also gone out there, and I’ve been campaigning a lot more."

It seems as though Breed has hit her stride, for now at least, by promising to clean up the streets and address the homelessness problem, drugs, and crime. Her newest push to sweep homeless encampments aligns with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) recent executive order that gives local officials more power to dismantle tents on the sidewalks and in public parks.

In the first week since San Francisco began ramping up sweeps, police officers issued at least 13 citations for illegally setting up tents on public property, which is more than they handed out in the past month combined.

Earlier this month, Breed also ordered city officials to offer homeless people one-way bus tickets out of town before providing other services such as housing or shelter.

One group happier with the way things are going is Asian Americans.

In February, they gave Breed the worst approval ratings out of all the ethnic groups, with 80% of Asian American voters disapproving of her job performance. Nineteen percent approved of her, and a measly 10% said they wanted her as their first choice.

In the newest poll, which surveyed 804 likely voters, Breed's disapproval rating dropped to 57%, and her approval rating rose to 43%.

Josephine Zhao, president of the Chinese American Democratic Club, said she thinks Breed’s improved position is because of the mayor's ramping up of public safety efforts.

“Her frequent messaging on how she’s been working with SFPD on giving them more of an ability to enforce law and support SFPD’s budget for more hiring, retaining officers as well as recruiting retired officers. I think those are messages that people want to hear,” Zhao told the outlet.

Breed also went across the world to secure a pair of pandas for the San Francisco Zoo, an effort that was heavily backed and applauded by the city's Chinese American advocates. During her trip, she also urged leaders to restore many of the direct flights from China to San Francisco International Airport that were canceled during the pandemic.

Nationally, Asian Americans often have to fight to get elected figures to notice them during an election year because their numbers are too few. However, in San Francisco, people of Chinese descent comprise more than one-fifth of the population, which makes them a key demographic in the November elections, with the power to sway the outcome.

Ding Lee, a former president of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, said in the past, mayoral candidates would pop by the association’s historic building in Chinatown for a photo-op. They'd stay for 15 minutes tops.

“Now they almost never turn down an invitation to come, and they stay for the whole event,” Lee told the New York Times. “They know that the Chinese vote is quite powerful now.”

Breed's campaign has reached out to possible voters via WeChat, a popular Chinese social messaging platform. Other mayoral candidates have recruited local Chinese leaders to serve in key campaign roles this year.

Candidates Breed, Safai, and Aron Peskin, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors who announced his candidacy for mayor in April, have deep-rooted ties with the Chinese community. Peskin and Safai's districts have large Chinese populations.

Chinese voters aren't as familiar with Farrell or Lurie, though both have turned to Chinese American activists in the area for help. Farrell tapped Jade Tu, a 28-year-old community organizer who was vital in the 2022 recall of left-wing District Attorney Chesa Boudin, to be his campaign manager.

Voters also seem to be on board with Breed's tougher stance on crime and accountability.

They backed two of her ballot measures earlier this year that related to policing and bringing back businesses to a hollowed-out downtown area. The measures were a hard pivot for the Democratic mayor but ones that paid off with San Franciscans.

One measure would expand police powers, while the other would mandate drug screening and treatment for welfare recipients if they want to continue to collect monetary assistance.

The problem of homelessness is a thorny one for Democrats in San Francisco, and Breed's “tough love” approach has become increasingly vitriolic.

According to the 2022 Bay Area Council poll , 86% of voters say homelessness has only worsened over the past few years. They want action. Some voters have reached their "breaking point" on the matter and claimed it has destroyed communities and cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars with little to no result.

Breed's embrace of Newsom's hard-line approach to homelessness (by progressive standards) has had mixed results. Not only has Breed said the city would start issuing citations and doing sweeps, but she has also ordered city officials who engage with the homeless to offer relocation as the first option.

“San Francisco will always lead with compassion, but we cannot allow our compassion to be taken advantage of,” Breed has said.

Farrell, who served as interim mayor, faulted Breed for not clearing encampments in the past.

“Let’s be clear: Nothing prohibited the city from clearing encampments pre-Grants Pass,” Farrell posted to social media, referring to the recent Supreme Court ruling. “Mayor Breed used ongoing litigation as an excuse.”

Farrell has promised to sweep all of the city’s major encampments if elected and has positioned himself as the most conservative among a largely moderate slate of candidates.

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Lurie knocked Breed's push to clear encampments. He called it a “lack of action" and claimed San Francisco lacks the shelter beds or supportive housing to move people off the streets.

“Pushing encampments from one block to another didn’t work when Mark Farrell tried it, and it’s not going to work under this mayor,” he added.