By Tim Redmond
We poured a lot of ink this week into the races in D1, D3 and D11,, since those are the swing districts.
And while most of what we wrote about focused on the front-running progressives in those races — Eric Mar, David Chiu and John Avalos — I don’t want anyone to forget that these are ranked-choice voting contests.
That means there will be no runoffs. Randy Shaw thinks that might be a bad thing; he says Avalos would easily beat Safai in a December runoff, but given the anti-Avalos money, I’m not sure that’s true.
At any rate, RCV is the process now — and in every one of these swing races, the outcome will depend on the second- and third-place votes.
So if you live in D1, D3 or D11, remember: It’s not enough just to put your top candidate first. It’s also important NOT to put Sue Lee, Joe Alioto or Ahsha Safai on your list at all. The don’t-vote-for vote is as important as the do-vote-for.
We’ve endorsed three candidates in D 11 and D 3. And I’ve urged that in D3, Chiu and Denise McCarthy work together to stop Alioto. As a matter of strategy, I think it makes sense to vote a full ballot in those districts. (I wish I could say the same in D1, but other than Eric Mar, there’s really nobody worth voting for, so bullet vote in that one.)