When London Breed was first elected mayor in 2018, San Francisco was a tech-fueled powerhouse with a bustling downtown and a thriving shopping district. Then came the coronavirus pandemic, which emptied office towers, left retail shops vacant and opened a chasm in city coffers.
Ms. Breed, 50, has insisted that the city is in better shape than her detractors claim and that she has improved San Francisco's trajectory, pointing to fewer car break-ins, homeless tents and drug overdoses in the past year.
She is leaning into her identity and her life story to set herself apart, pointing out that her background of poverty, drug addiction, and crime make her uniquely positioned to lead.
Ms. Breed is a Black woman whose opponents are white men, a distinction she considers important in a city where Black residents have much higher rates of poverty and health problems.
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