The David Chiu campaign has released a poll that isn’t really all that surprising. It shows that the two candidates who have run citywide races — State Sen. Leland Yee and City Attorney Dennis Herrera — are a little tiny bit ahead, and Chiu is a little tiny bit behind, but all of them are well within the margin of error of a poll sample of only 500 people. Yee is out in front at 17 percent (I’m actually surprised he’s not further ahead at this point, since so much of this is name recognition and he’s been elected so many times, to so many jobs, over so many years that he has by far the best name rec in the race). Chiu and Herrera are tied at 13 and 12 percent (but with a plus-or-minus five percent MOE, all three are statistically in a dead heat).
I would have thought John Avalos would be closer to the top at this point, since he’s doing a good job consolidating the left, but he’s never run citywide, and the campaigns have barely started. Again: It’s name recognition right now.
The bottom line: There is no front runner (with the possible exception of Yee). There may never be a front-runner among the three men bunched in the center of the pack. It’s all going to come down to who gets the second- and third-place votes — which is why ranked-choice voting is so valuable in a race like this. In a traditional race, two candidates who combined might have 35 percent of the vote would be in a runoff, and a candidate who missed the cut by half a percentage point would be out of the running.
One thing we do know: This poll is going to drive Rose Pak and Willie Brown nuts, and increase dramatically the pressure on Ed Lee to run. the more powerful Yee appears, the more likely it is that the center of power in the Asian community will shift away from Pak’s Chinatown operations. Yee’s base is west side, not Chinatown; always has been. Pak despises him (and the feeling is no doubt at least somewhat mutual).
The other fact that weighs in Yee’s favor: He’s doing a better job than anyone of expanding his base. He’s racking up leftside endorsements (unions, the Sierra Club) and aiming hard at the Avalos Number Twos.
As for the questions about what people want in a mayor? Again, these are poll-tested platitudes that we hear every year, and we’re going to hear more of them. “Together.” “Shared values.” “Making the city work.” If it weren’t such a beautiful day, I’d want to puke out my window.