Democrat Beats Back Green Candidate in S.F.

Gavin Newsom, a 36-year-old millionaire entrepreneur and protege of outgoing mayor Willie Brown, edged out a surprisingly strong Green Party opponent Tuesday night to become the youngest San Francisco mayor in a century.

Also victorious Tuesday was Kamala Harris, a deputy city attorney who ousted longtime Dist. Atty. Terence Hallinan by a wide margin. Harris, who becomes the state’s first African American district attorney, also received strong backing from Brown.

The contest between Green Party member and Board of Supervisors President Matt Gonzalez and fellow Supervisor Newsom had become a referendum on politics as usual.

Newsom -- a charismatic Democratic Party favorite -- campaigned for more than a year as Brown’s chosen successor. With all the precincts counted, Newsom won by 52.6% to Gonzalez’s 47.4%.

Gonzalez led a vigorous Green Party bid for mayor that drew national attention and had Democratic Party heavyweights scrambling to protect their longtime stronghold. The Democratic strategy worked even though young liberals, disenchanted with Newsom’s establishment credentials, flocked to Gonzalez, a candidate who cast himself as a political outsider.

Newsom began the night with a 65% margin powered by a record-setting early absentee vote campaign that marshaled support from Democrats and the city’s much smaller caste of Republicans.

Gonzalez pulled together a raucous following of young idealists convinced that he represented the first whiff of honest government in years. An increased voter turnout in the most liberal pockets of the city helped Gonzalez, 38, erase most of Newsom’s early gains.

Once provisional ballots are counted, it appears Tuesday’s election may have inspired the highest voter turnout for a mayoral race since the mid-1970s.

“People were looking at this being almost a runaway [for Newsom] in the beginning,” said San Francisco pollster David Binder. “It shows the progressives are a strong force in San Francisco and Newsom would be well-suited to get common ground with them. If I were Gavin, I would look at this and realize the city is divided ideologically.”

In his victory speech, Newsom acknowledged that he needs to reach out to “those who are with us and those who were against us.”

“I’m proud that ideas mattered more than ideology,” he said before cheering supporters. “We’re going to do more. We’re going to do better. Change is on its way.”

Brown agreed, saying Newsom “will give the city fresh, new leadership.”

If Gonzalez had pulled off an upset, he would have become the most prominent elected Green Party official in the United States -- claiming a city that has been a Democratic Party stronghold for decades. Democratic Party leaders had responded accordingly. Former President Bill Clinton flew in on a Newsom backer’s private plane Monday to address supporters. Former Vice President Al Gore visited last week. And Democratic officials including U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, among others, have campaigned aggressively for Newsom.

Hundreds of Newsom’s supporters gathered at the famed Fillmore Auditorium on Tuesday evening, cheering and hugging when the results were returned.

“He’s had a superior organization. He’s been committed to social progress over the long term and that’s what’s important,” said Roberta Achtenberg, a former San Francisco supervisor who mounted an unsuccessful campaign for mayor. “He will need to be generous in victory and he’s shown that he can be.”

Before more than 1,000 screaming supporters, raising fists and chanting: “Who’s city? Our city!” Gonzalez conceded defeat shortly before 10 p.m. He attempted to calm the combative crowd, urging them to be “good sports about this.”

Of Newsom, he said: “He is a colleague of mine on the Board of Supervisors. If there’s anyone who can’t handle this, they should leave.”

Further, he said: “This is a city with 3% Greens and look at what we did.”

Gonzalez closed his remarks by characterizing the race as a foundation of a progressive political movement in the city. “This city really represents the most American of American values. We didn’t win, but we didn’t lose either.”

His supporters had gathered to watch results in a bare-bones Mission District office building. The mood was festive and evocative of a 1960s peace demonstration. Waiters in white chefs smocks circulated with platters of hummus, Chinese hors d’oeuvres and inexpensive red wine. Outside, paneled trucks with live bands circled the building next to a Bay Bridge on ramp.

As the evening wore on, a pall fell over the crowd.

“It’s still a win-win situation for Matt,” said John Bardis, a former San Francisco supervisor and early Gonzalez supporter. “What he has done is incredible, [he was] outspent on reported statements 10 to 1 and generated all this enthusiasm among young people who haven’t been involved in politics at all.”

Gonzalez’s campaign proved that Greens can join liberal Democrats and independents to successfully challenge the power structure, said Gonzalez campaign strategist Ross Mirkarimi.

“It sets the stage for future trials and attempts at running strong races,” he said. “We’ve cut our teeth on this campaign.”

In this city battered by the dot-com bust the race has played out with such homespun themes as job creation, homelessness and tenants’ rights.

And it has shown the nuance of San Francisco’s political landscape. Both candidates earned support from the Chinese American, African American and gay communities, although polls and other analyses showed wealthier older voters and homeowners siding with Newsom, and young renters flocking to Gonzalez.

Newsom emerged as the pro-business candidate entrenched with the city’s Democratic Party establishment through his patron, Brown. Brown first appointed him to an open seat on the Board of Supervisors in 1997.

Newsom earned early public support with a tough approach to homelessness at a time when tourism hit a slump.

His initiative called Care, Not Cash, would slashed General Assistance payments in lieu of services; voters overwhelmingly approved it but it is stalled in the courts.

His other initiative approved last month banned aggressive panhandling.

Newsom lives in a $3-million home and his winery, restaurants and other businesses -- with backing from family friend and multimillionaire Gordon Getty -- have lent him an air of privilege even though he grew up with a single mother who worked two jobs.

Gonzalez, in contrast, rents a flat with roommates and sleeps on a futon. The former deputy public defender and son of Mexican immigrants once played bass in a punk band, and is an art and beat poet aficionado.

Even though he went to Columbia University and Stanford Law School and has served on the Board of Supervisors since 2000, he cast himself as a political outsider who will champion the rights of working people.

Newsom’s backers insisted that he spoke for the city’s often forgotten middle class at a critical juncture.

“Gavin Newsom is a classic liberal Democrat on all the social issues, whether it’s gay marriage or abortion rights,” said Mike Sullivan, chairman of Plan C, a moderate civic organization that backs Newsom.

“But he has a pragmatic approach to economic development, which this city very much needs.”

Gonzalez spent Tuesday presiding over a board meeting, while Newsom showed up for jury duty, before a judge deferred his service for several months.

“I feel good,” he said, between handshakes. “At the end of the day people are going to see that we need someone who can solve problems, not just protest.”

Whatever their similarities, the candidates’ images contrasted drastically.

Powering Gonzalez’s upstart campaign, most agree, was a desire for new leaders untainted by special interest politics.

“You have an ideological split, a lot of it along age lines and along image lines, with this anti-incumbent fervor that helped Arnold [Schwarzenegger] get into office,” said California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres.

“There is still this notion out there to throw everybody out and start over again.”

Hallinan, who had survived previous attempts to oust him from his job, had promoted himself as, “the nation’s most progressive district attorney.”

But Harris had challenged his office as ineffective and backward. Harris campaign strategist Jim Stern said her clear victory was proof of voters craving for change.

“That’s what was really driving this,” Stern said. “If you look at Matt Gonzalez and how close he came, people are rejecting the politics of the past.”

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Times correspondent Donna Horowitz contributed to this report.