From [HERE] London Breed, San Francisco’s first Black female mayor, who steered the city through the pandemic but also saw its quality of life sink, conceded her re-election race on Thursday.

Ms. Breed said in a news conference at City Hall that she had called Daniel Lurie, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune who has never held elected office, to congratulate him on his win.

“Being mayor of San Francisco has been the greatest honor of my lifetime,” she told journalists in a meeting room off her office. “I’m beyond grateful to our residents for the opportunity to serve the city that raised me.”

The Associated Press had not yet called the race, though local news outlets did. Ms. Breed said she thought it would take “a miracle” to change the outcome at this point.

In the months and years following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and racial-justice riots of 2020, San Francisco became a poster child for blue-city decline and disorder. Downtown offices emptied, blowing a hole in the city’s budget. Businesses fled amid increasing crime. Massive homeless camps took over sidewalks, giving residents and tourists another reason to avoid downtown.

In 2020, Breed caved to the anti-police fever, slashing the police and sheriff’s office budgets, and redirecting $120 million to racial-justice causes. Breed said that the city was “prioritizing investments in the African American community around housing, mental health and wellness, workforce development, economic justice, education, advocacy and accountability.”

More recently, Breed has backed tough-on-crime ballot initiatives to increase police powers and require welfare recipients to undergo drug screenings. She has also has cracked down on homeless camps and beefed up a program to bus the homeless out of the city, angering many far-left homeless advocates. [MORE]