SAN FRANCISCO – The first Black woman elected mayor of San Francisco is fighting a self-funded philanthropist for reelection, while in nearby Oakland, the first Hmong American mayor of a major city is fighting a recall Wednesday.

It was too early to call off San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s re-election bid or Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao’s recall effort, both driven by concerns about public safety and homelessness. San Francisco and Alameda counties will not update results until Thursday.

Breed was trailing anti-poverty nonprofit founder and Levi Strauss heir Daniel Lurie after a costly campaign in which multiple challengers (all fellow Democrats) accused her of wasting her six years in office while homeless tent campsOutdoors drug use and brazen retail thefts proliferated.

“This isn’t over until it’s over,” Breed said at an election party Tuesday night, noting that she, too, was initially behind in his first run for mayor in 2018, but ultimately won the position.

Crime and homelessness also led frustrated residents of Oakland to collect enough signatures to put Thao’s impeachment on Tuesday’s vote. They blame Thao, who won office just two years ago, for a long list of the city’s problems. California Governor Gavin Newsom has sent state highway patrol officers, state prosecutorsand surveillance cameras to help Oakland fight crime.

Thao became the first Hmong American mayor of a major US city after being elected in November 2022. Oakland has about 400,000 residents and is, at times, more politically liberal than San Francisco. Vice President Kamala Harris, who conceded the presidential race to former President Donald Trump on Wednesday, he says Oakland like his hometown.

Recall proponents say the mayor “created a public safety crisis” in part by shot Popular Oakland Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong. His memory was financed largely by investor Philip Dreyfuss, who did not respond to requests for comment. The local NAACP supports the recall.

Thao has an FBI investigation hanging over his head after authorities in June raided his home and other properties owned by a politically influential family that controls the city’s recycling contract. Thao has maintained his innocence and authorities have not said what they are investigating.

Thao said Tuesday night that there were still more votes to be counted.

But California voters showed frustration over crime and easily approved a proposal Tuesday that reclassifies some misdemeanors. robbery and drug-related crimes as felonies.

The streets of San Francisco have been left cleaner and homeless much harder to find tentsbut a daytime shooting in september of San Francisco 49ers rookie Ricky Pearsall in a popular central business district reignited the issue of safety in the city.

Breed, who was raised by her grandmother in San Francisco public housing, says the pandemic challenged the city, but her administration laid the groundwork for recovery. In the March primaries, he defended a pair of successful public safety tickets measures to expand police powers and force some people to undergo drug treatment.

San Francisco elects its mayor through a ranked choice voting system which allows voters to list up to 10 candidates in order of preference. Lurie led Breed in early returns.

Lurie, who never held elected office, pledged to return accountability and public service to City Hall, and reveled in his role as a political outsider.

“We cannot solve today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions,” he said in his electoral party.

Lurie pumped nearly $9 million of his own money into his first mayoral bid, saying that as a political outsider, he needed to introduce himself to voters. He is heir to the Levi Strauss & Co. fortune through his mother, Mimi Haas, who married Peter Haas when Daniel was a child. Peter Haas was the longtime CEO of the iconic clothing company who died in 2005.

Breed raised more than $5 million in his reelection bid, including $1.4 million from former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Early results showed San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin, the most progressive contender in the race, in third place and Mark Farrell, a venture capitalist and former San Francisco Supervisor who briefly served as acting mayor, in fourth.

The race won the elections as mayor in June 2018 to serve out the remainder of Lee’s term. she was re-elected in 2019 to a full term that has lasted five years instead of the typical four, after voters changed the electoral calendar to align with the presidential contests.