San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie is taking his turnaround pitch national, and he didn't soften it. In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash that aired Thursday, Lurie said the city "lost our way" before he took office.
"We got so entrapped in our progressive values and talking about progressivism that we weren't taking stock of what was happening on our streets," he told Bash, according to accounts of the interview from Fox News and the New York Post.
The numbers he leaned on
Lurie pointed to two figures. "We had 810 people die of overdose in San Francisco three years ago. There's nothing progressive about that," he said. "There's nothing progressive about 30,000 car break-ins." He said car break-ins have since dropped 90%, a figure he credited to a tougher approach to public safety.
He described his version of good governance as public safety first, followed by the city's mental health and drug crisis, then cutting red tape for businesses. That includes getting more people into treatment, including involuntary treatment. "We stood up 600 treatment and recovery beds last year, and we still have work to do," he said.
When Bash pressed him on what progressive means to him, Lurie said he still supports values like caring for the city's immigrants and its LGBTQ+ community. But he drew a line at street conditions: "There's nothing progressive about small businesses having to shutter up because they're a victim of crime over and over again."
Not everyone at home is applauding
The interview landed the same day the mayor's office skipped a City Hall hearing on drug use, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Supervisors at that hearing said enforcement sweeps tend to push dealing from one block to the next rather than ending it.
The Chronicle noted that Lurie told CNN he's focused on keeping "that mother walking their child to the bus stop safe, and also not seeing open-air drug use." The paper also reported that some neighborhoods are still struggling with street disorder, even as many residents say quality of life has improved overall. The mayor's office pointed to recent steps such as a youth engagement officer at school pick-up and drop-off and a daily early-morning street team.
Why it matters
Lurie, a moderate Democrat elected in 2024, has made repairing San Francisco's national image a priority. Saying on national TV that his own party's politics led the city astray is likely to please business leaders and frustrate the city's progressive wing. Voters will judge it less by the soundbite than by whether the street-level numbers keep improving.