Board of Supervisors President David Chiu announced his candidacy for mayor today, becoming the eighth major candidate in a field that will likely continue shaking out in the coming months.
Chiu has been considering the move since at least the start of this year, when he played kingmaker as the swing vote to name Ed Lee as interim mayor, parting from his progressive colleagues to do so. With no strong progressive candidate yet in the mayor’s race, the question now is whether Chiu will try to win over the left and if he can be successful in doing so after making several more moderate moves in recent years.
Chiu’s initial political base will be allies of Chinatown Chamber of Commerce boss Rose Pak, who has pledged to block Sen. Leland Yee from becoming mayor, is close to Chiu, and has been courting someone to run. There have even been widespread rumors recently that Pak and ally Willie Brown have been trying to convince Lee to run, a possibility that those in Chiu’s camp dismiss.
Chiu will made his announcement at 11 am on the steps of City Hall. Sources say Chiu has spent weeks lining up support for his run, so it could be telling to see who shares the stage with Chiu beyond Sup. Jane Kim and others from his immediate political circle. Chiu and Kim are sponsoring the mid-Market tax break that the Mayor’s Office crafted to keep Twitter from leaving town, the most controversial legislation of the year, a proposal that has drawn opposition from many progressives. Some other mayoral campaigns have privately started to grumble about the deal, so it could become a mayoral campaign issue, particularly if the Office of Economic Analysis concludes it will be a drain on city coffers when that report is issued by week’s end.
For more on the implications of Chiu’s leap into the race, read this week’s Guardian.