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Cyndi Lauper
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Cisneros makes history
Baldwin survives Senate race
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'Cabaret' in our time
The
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Vol. 54 • No. 45 • November 7-13, 2024
Trump wins reelection to White House by Lisa Keen
A John Ferrannini
Daniel Lurie is poised to become San Francisco’s next mayor.
Lurie leading for SF mayor by John Ferrannini
P
olitical novice Daniel Lurie – an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune and former nonprofit executive – is leading in the race to become San Francisco mayor, besting incumbent London Breed by 56.3% to 43.6% in the 14th round of ranked-choice voting, according to preliminary returns from the San Francisco Department of Elections. A Lurie victory would represent a political earthquake in the city; the 47-year-old scion of one of the city’s most prominent families ran as an outsider after decades of Room 200 at City See page 8 >>
majority of U.S. voters set aside all evidence of Republican nominee Donald Trump’s mental decline, adoration of dictators, criminal convictions, and hostility to the U.S. Constitution and gave him a decisive victory November 5 over Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. Mother Jones magazine called the 2024 presidential election the “most anti-LGBTQ election in decades.” And, on Wednesday morning, many post-election political analysts were crediting much of Trump’s victory to the campaign’s $21 million investment in an antitransgender ad. The ad ran more than 30,000 times – especially during televised football games – and apparently helped win over young men of all races. In a campaign heavily divided by gender – including the possibility that the U.S. would elect its first woman president – the ad apparently helped secure the popular vote and the necessary electoral votes in closely contested swing states. And much of the post-election commentary criticized the Harris campaign’s failure to produce any response to the ad. Fox News reporter Bret Baier tried to get some traction for the anti-LGBTQ tactic during his interview with Harris October 16. “Are you still in support of using taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates or detained illegal aliens to transition to another gender?” asked Baier.
AP
President-elect Donald Trump, left, and Vice President-elect JD Vance appeared at the West Palm Beach Convention Center in Florida on election night.
“I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed,” noted Harris. The ads, and various speeches by Trump at rallies, derided the “transgender insanity” in schools. Trump repeatedly characterized Harris’ position as supporting the use of taxpayer funds for “sex-change operations” and transgender girls and women playing in girls and women’s sports. The ad did not, of course, explain that a
1976 U.S. Supreme Court ruling held that the Eighth Amendment requires federal prisons to make “medically necessary” treatment available to prisoners. The American Medical Association and others have deemed “mental health care, hormone therapy, and genderaffirming surgical procedures [as] medically necessary….” See page 10 >>
Fielder poised to deliver record number of out San Francisco supervisors by Matthew S. Bajko
S Courtesy the candidate
Palm Springs City Councilmember Lisa Middleton
Middleton finishes strong in CA leg race by Matthew S. Bajko
W
hile gay former West Sacramento mayor Christopher Cabaldon will be the first Filipino American in the state Senate, Palm Springs City Councilmember Lisa Middleton is waiting to see if she will join him in Sacramento as the first transgender member of the Legislature. They are among the 20 LGBTQ candidates who ran Tuesday for state legislative seats across California. According to the early returns, Middleton finished strong in her race for the 19th Senate District spanning Riverside and San Bernardino counties against state Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa). After being statistically tied at 50% Tuesday night, Middleton fell into second place behind Ochoa Bogh with nearly 47% of the vote as of early Wednesday morning, according to the returns posted by the Secretary of State’s office. See page 7 >>
an Francisco is poised to see a record number of LGBTQ people serving together on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. With an out candidate leading in the race for the open District 9 seat, there will be a bloc of four out supervisors come 2025. Based on the current ranked-choice tally in the contest to succeed termed out Supervisor Hillary Ronen, progressive Jackie Fielder has taken the lead with 57% of the vote after six rounds. In second place with roughly 43% is Trevor Chandler, a gay moderate. A victory by Fielder, who is queer, will make her the first Native American elected supervisor in the city. Her win will also mark the first time in 28 years that an out female has been elected to a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Over that time an out woman was appointed to fill a vacancy but went on to lose her election to keep the seat. Coming in third is Roberto Hernandez, a straight moderate, while queer progressive Stephen Torres trails in fourth. Ronen had dual endorsed Fielder and Torres in the contest to represent the Mission district, Bernal Heights, and a slice of the Mission Dolores neighborhood adjacent to the Castro LGBTQ district. It was a stunning defeat for Hernandez, known as the mayor of the Mission and expected to do much better in the race. But Chandler had secured the number one endorsement from the San Francisco Democratic Party, which gave Hernandez its number two nod, and won the backing of many fellow moderate leaders in the city. For more than a year Chandler and Fielder had largely focused on each other, attacking one another on social media and in emailed missives to supporters. They each had also aired several different campaign ads over the final weeks of the campaign. There are currently three gay supervisors, which itself marks a record for the number of
Courtesy the candidate
Jackie Fielder is leading for the District 9 supervisor race
out men serving together on the board. In the District 5 supervisor race gay political newcomer Scotty Jacobs had hoped to make it a quartet. Alas, he landed in third after three rounds with close to 13% behind first place finisher Bilal Mahmood, a moderate who received 53% of the vote after four rounds of ranked-choice voting. In second place is the incumbent, progressive Supervisor Dean Preston, with almost 47%, while Autumn Looijen landed in fourth place with nearly 10%. A second gay candidate, Black Republican Allen Jones, landed in fifth with 1.6%. The race to represent the Haight, Western Addition, and Tenderloin neighborhoods had largely been seen as a contest between Preston and Mahmood. Two other incumbent supervisors were also seeking second terms Tuesday. In the hotly contested race for the District 1 seat covering the Richmond District, progressive Supervisor Connie Chan is also on the cusp of being defeated. After four rounds Chan is in second with 49.91%
of the vote, while her main challenger, moderate Marjan Philhour, is in first place with 50.09%. In the West Portal-centered District 7 race, Supervisor Myrna Melgar has taken first place after three rounds with 51.59% of the vote. In second with 48.41% is flower shop owner Matt Boschetto, while coming in third is Stephen MartinPinto, vice president of the city’s Veterans Affairs Commission. The other two contests were for open seats due to the incumbents being termed out. Leading the race to succeed District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin, the current board president who ran for mayor Tuesday, is Danny Sauter with 56.07% of the vote after five rounds of ranked choice results. In second at 43.93% is Sharon Lai. In the District 11 race in the city’s Excelsior District to succeed Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, who also vied to become mayor, Michael Lai is standing atop the pack with 50.92% of the vote after six rounds of ranked-choice tallies. In second is Chyanne Chen with 49.08%. In addition to the winners of Tuesday’s supervisor races joining the board in 2025 there will also be a new holder of the District 2 seat covering the Marina and Pacific Heights neighborhoods. Incumbent Supervisor Catherine Stefani will be stepping down due to her election Tuesday to the city’s District 19 Assembly seat. Stefani easily won the legislative seat with 63% of the vote. With new members of the state Legislature to be sworn in on December 2, it will be up to Mayor London Breed to appoint someone to fill the vacancy. The person will serve through June 2026 when a special election will be held on the primary ballot that year to serve out the remainder of Stefani’s term through January 2027. The winner will have a leg up in the race that fall for a full four-year term. Should a special election need to be called prior to the primary ballot, then the race to serve out the rest of Stefani’s term would be conjoined with it. t