Gavin Christopher Newsom is an American politician and businessman serving since 2019 as the 40th governor of California. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 49th lieutenant governor of California from 2011 to 2019 and the 42nd mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011.
Matthew Edward Gonzalez is an American politician, lawyer, and activist. He served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 2001 to 2005 and was president of the Board. In 2003, Gonzalez, running as a member of the Green Party, lost a race for mayor of San Francisco to Democrat Gavin Newsom. In the 2008 presidential election, Gonzalez ran for vice president as the running mate of candidate Ralph Nader. As of February 2024, he works as the Chief Attorney at the San Francisco Public Defender's Office.
Christopher Edward Daly is a former San Francisco Board of Supervisors member He represented District 6, serving from 2001 to 2011. He now lives in Fairfield, California, but commutes to Las Vegas, Nevada and Carson City, Nevada, where he works for the Nevada State Education Association.
Michela Alioto-Pier is an American politician and small business owner who served as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 2004 to 2011. A Democrat, she represented District 2, encompassing the Marina and Pacific Heights neighborhoods. She previously served as a member of the San Francisco Port Commission. She was appointed to the Board of Supervisors by Gavin Newsom after he was elected mayor, in 2003. Newsom himself was initially appointed to this seat by former mayor Willie Brown.
The mayor of the City and County of San Francisco is the head of the executive branch of the San Francisco city and county government. The officeholder has the duty to enforce city laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the legislative branch. The mayor serves a four-year term and is limited to two successive terms. Because of San Francisco's status as a consolidated city-county, the mayor also serves as the head of government of the county; both entities have been governed together by a combined set of governing bodies since 1856.
The San Francisco 2004 same-sex weddings took place between February 12 and March 11, 2004, after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom directed the city-county clerk to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and a number of interest groups sued to end the practice. About 4,000 such licenses were issued before the California Supreme Court ordered a halt to the practice on March 11. On August 12, 2004, the California Supreme Court voided all of the licenses that had been issued in February and March.
Theresa Sparks is an American transgender woman, and is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and was a candidate for San Francisco Supervisor for District 6 in the November 2010 election. She is a former president of the San Francisco Police Commission and former CEO of Good Vibrations. She is also one of San Francisco's most famous transgender women and was a Grand Marshal in the 2008 San Francisco Pride Parade.
Anthony Hall is a former American elected official. He was a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 2000 to 2004. He resigned in 2004 to accept appointment as executive director of the Treasure Island Development Authority, a post he held for only 14 months. Hall later filed papers for running against the incumbent Newsom in the 2007 mayoral election but dropped out before the election, citing Newsom's entrenchment. He was known as the lone conservative on the Board of Supervisors and surprised the other board members when he supported Matt Gonzalez's successful bid for president of the board.
The 2003 San Francisco mayoral election occurred on November 4, 2003. The incumbent, Willie Brown, was termed out of office and could not seek a third term. The general election included three top candidates including then Supervisor Gavin Newsom and then president of the board of supervisors, Matt Gonzalez and former supervisor Angela Alioto. No candidate received the required majority, so the race went into a run-off of the two top candidates, which were Gavin Newsom and Matt Gonzalez. The run-off occurred on December 9, 2003, where Gavin Newsom was elected mayor of San Francisco.
The mayoralty of Gavin Newsom began when Democrat Gavin Newsom was elected Mayor of San Francisco in 2003, succeeding Willie Brown. Newsom, who was 36 when he took office, became San Francisco's youngest mayor in over a century.
The 2011 San Francisco mayoral election was held on Tuesday, November 8, 2011, to elect the mayor of San Francisco. The incumbent Ed Lee, appointed to fill the vacant mayoral seat, succeeded in his bid to become the first elected Asian-American mayor of a major American city.
Edwin Mah Lee was an American politician and attorney who served as the 43rd Mayor of San Francisco from 2011 until his death in 2017.
Kevin Lee Faulconer is an American politician who served as the 36th mayor of San Diego, California from 2014 to 2020. A member of the Republican Party, Faulconer served as the member of the San Diego City Council for the 2nd district from 2006 to 2014.
The November 2011 San Francisco general elections were held on November 8, 2011, in San Francisco, California. The elections included those for San Francisco mayor, district attorney, and sheriff, and eight ballot measures.
Peter Ragone III is an American public affairs expert, entrepreneur and investor active in a range of political, corporate and civic efforts. Since 2007, Ragone has started, advised and invested in companies.
"Chicken" John Joseph James Rinaldi is a musician, showman, activist, and author living in San Francisco, California. He is involved with the San Francisco arts community as well as the Burning Man community. In what he referred to as "an experiment", he was a candidate in the 2007 San Francisco mayoral election, during which he wore fake mustaches, debated a puppet, and arranged costumed flash mobs to occur at campaign events, in an effort to be as flippant a candidate as possible.
Aaron Dan Peskin is an American elected official in San Francisco, California. He is a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors representing District 3. He was elected in 2015, having previously served two terms in 2001–2009.
A special election was held for Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco on June 5, 2018, to fill the remainder of the term of Ed Lee, who had died in office on December 12, 2017. Upon Lee's death, London Breed, President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, became Acting Mayor of San Francisco, but a vote of six supervisors replaced Breed with Supervisor Mark Farrell. The mayoral election was held concurrently with the statewide direct primary election. In San Francisco, the election for the eighth district member of the board of supervisors was also on the ballot.
The 2019 San Francisco District Attorney election was held on November 5, 2019, to elect the next District Attorney of San Francisco. The election, which was held alongside the 2019 mayoral election in which incumbent mayor London Breed won her first full term, was won by public defender Chesa Boudin.
The 2021 California gubernatorial recall election was a special recall election that began in August 2021 and concluded on September 14, 2021, when California voters chose not to recall incumbent Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, elected for the term January 2019 to January 2023.
