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San Francisco mayor-elect: 'We just want to get back to common sense'

By Tara Suter - 11/13/24, 10:56 AM EST

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San Francisco’s mayor-elect Daniel Lurie (D), who won over the incumbent last week, discussed Democrats’ losses and his success in an interview Tuesday.

CNN's Erin Burnett pressed Lurie on the impact of the election results on Democrats.

"Republicans seeing their best numbers in decades," she said. "And those swings, I mean, it‘s unbelievable, right, just to think about it, in the liberal strongholds of New York, Chicago and, of course, your city of San Francisco. So, mayor-elect, how big of a wake-up call is this for the Democratic Party?”

The mayor-elect, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune and notable California philanthropist, said those in San Francisco "don‘t think of ourselves as progressives or moderates or conservatives."

“We just want to get back to common sense. We have to deliver the basics, and that‘s my plan, that‘s the mandate that I was elected to fulfill," Lurie added.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed (D) conceded to Lurie last Thursday. She also called him to congratulate him on his victory.

Lurie on Tuesday also offered a look into his agenda for the city.

“We have to make sure that we have a fully staffed police department. We have to get our behavioral health and drug crisis under control in our city,” he said.

“We need to make sure our small businesses can thrive,” the mayor-elect added. “Our big businesses need to be coming back to San Francisco. We need to be open for business again. I don't believe that that‘s a rightward swing, that‘s a commonsense approach.”

Breed had faced criticism from Democratic competitors in her bid to stay as mayor on issues such as retail theft, open-air drug use and homeless encampments.

Lurie has not held a public office before but has told voters that he will make sure that San Francisco has “clean and safe streets.”

“Over the course of the last six and half years serving as Mayor for San Francisco which include leading the City safely through a global pandemic not seen in more than 100 years, Mayor Breed has set bold goals and delivered significant outcomes for a range of challenges impacting the City, prioritizing police staffing and retention, business tax reform, street conditions, behavioral health and homelessness,” Breed spokesperson Parisa Safarzadeh said in an email to The Hill.

The Hill has reached out to The Democratic National Committee and Breed’s campaign for comment.

Updated at 5:12 p.m.

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