Labor Seals the Deal

How Connie Chan Secured Re-election Despite Strong Opposition

In 2020, Connie Chan won her first election to represent San Francisco’s District 1 on the Board of Supervisors. That victory was undoubtedly a struggle.

Chan received a little over 37% of the first tally of votes that year and ultimately won after six rounds of ranked-choice voting. Her margin of victory over opponent Marjan Philhour was a paltry 125 votes in the final total.

Our most recent election, however, was a different story. Chan finished the first round of voting with nearly 48% in support and bested Philhour again in ranked-choice voting, winning in the fourth round by a comparatively comfortable 1,300 votes.

What made the November 2024 victory even more impressive was the breadth of Chan’s opposition and its attempts to unseat her. Instead, she finished stronger than before — and she did it with the support of the members of the City’s building trades.

Connie Chan is inaugurated for her second term serving as supervisor o San Francisco’s District 1 on Wednesday, January 8.

20/20 Vision in 2024

The first time Connie Chan’s name appeared on the ballot, the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council endorsed her opponent, Philhour. But time flipped the script, and in the run-up to the 2024 election, the council endorsed Chan wholeheartedly.

“[Chan] worked hard to gain our trust, and she secured it,” said John Doherty, IBEW Local 6 business manager and SF Building Trades Council vice-president. “I mean, it was across-the-board at the council level that everybody was behind her.”

Chan wasn’t a complete unknown to labor four years ago. The San Francisco Labor Council (SFLC) supported her initial candidacy in 2020 in addition to her re-election bid in 2024.

SFLC Executive Director Kim Tavaglione described Chan’s tenure as collaborative. She gave Chan credit for her work on the budget and negotiations with the city.

“She helps find solutions when people are at a crossroads,” Tavaglione said, adding that the key to Chan’s success in this election cycle was the unity between the labor and trades councils.

“We weren’t fighting each other,” Tavaglione said of the two councils.

So, what pushed the SF Building Trades Council into the Chan camp during last year’s election? Doherty said that the building trades saw their relationship with the supervisor deepen over the past four years and found her to be an elected official who was more than willing to collaborate with labor for working people.

“Once we started working with her, we saw what she championed,” Doherty said. “If we approached her, the door was always open. If she couldn’t do something, she said she couldn’t do it. If she could do something, she tried like hell to get things done.”

Chan said that she values the skilled-and-trained workforce the building trades offer and has become a fan of project labor agreements. She supports prevailing wages and wants to see more affordable housing built by unions and more housing occupied by the workers who build it.

“That has always been our common and shared goal,” Chan said, “and I am grateful to have [union] support for my re-election.”

Chan wants to keep investing in apprenticeships and help continue the pipeline to the trades, and she doesn’t want to hear any more excuses about labor costs making development unaffordable, she said.

“I think this is a moment where we should also recognize that [apprenticeships are] an investment in people and in their skills,” Chan said.

‘Crazy Stuff’

It turns out that Chan’s opposition during the last election might not have been as effective when it came to the results — but the results don’t reflect the opposition’s tenacity.

While Chan enjoyed having the trades and the SFLC in her corner, Philhour benefited from a Whitman’s sampler of backers. These include the big-tech-funded political advocacy groups and political action committees Families for a Vibrant SF, Together SF, and Grow SF, as well as the NorCal Carpenters Union and then-mayor London Breed’s administration. The San Francisco Chronicle even endorsed Chan’s opponent.

Philhour is a former advisor to Breed, who frequently clashed with Chan on safety issues. Chan, a progressive, even went so far as to call Breed “incompetent” in an interview.

“One of the hardest things about the Breed administration is that she didn’t really open her door and would make decisions without us on matters that affected us directly,” said Doherty, who hasn’t been shy about the building trades’ dissatisfaction with Breed’s way of doing things. “[Chan] took our side on that, and if we needed to run a counter-measure, we could always rely on her to be a solid vote.”

Doherty added that there was some “crazy stuff” said about Chan, including that she was anti-housing. He complimented her on her work in District 1.

“I think she’s been working hard for the members in her district and in the City broadly,” Doherty said. “Her district is full of working families, and she looks out for them.”

Tavaglione said that a number of SFLC members make up the working-class neighborhoods that are a big part of District 1.

In 2022, Chan’s district was redrawn, shifting the demographics to include some more affluent — and presumably more conservative — constituents living in the Seacliff and Presidio Terrace neighborhoods.

But big-money PAC ploys to put pressure on the incumbent to move to the right didn’t have the desired effect. The most egregious bit of mudslinging came from Grow SF, which ran a campaign called “Clear Out Connie.” (Apparently big fans of alliteration, Grow SF also had a “Dump Dean” campaign against District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, who did end up losing his seat.)

“I think we should have robust policy debates,” said Chan. “But I think when it comes to personal attacks like something like ‘Clear Out Connie,’ then, yeah, I think that on a personal level, it is hurtful, and I think it’s frankly hurtful, also, for my family.”

Moving Forward

Political battles can create wounds that either leave permanent scars or heal in time for the next fight — and the next set of shifting allegiances. Fortunately, labor in San Francisco has historically managed to patch it up and move on, even after not seeing eye-to-eye on each and every candidate.

“We always come together,” said Tavaglione. “I don’t think there’s any hard feelings,”

Doherty added that the trades and carpenters have had their differences over the years and still find commonality.

“They chose a side, and their side was purely based on politics, not based on results,” Doherty said. “We are open to mending fences with the carpenters because we know their rank-and-file people are just like our rank-and-file people. [Members] just want to work, they want to feed their families, they want to retire with dignity.”

Tavaglione said the SFLC will be looking to Chan to guide the City through these difficult economic times.

When asked how Chan could do that, Tavaglione responded, “Primarily, just keep on doing what she’s been doing. She’s a partner in every way for labor.”