Matt Gonzalez Endorses Ross Mirkarimi

San Francisco's District 5 promises to be an interesting test of the city's new IRV system -- instant runoff or ranked choice voting. With three Green Party candidates and several progressive Democrats running for the seat left vacant by Board of Supervisors President Matt Gonzalez, there is no shortage of good choices to represent the part of the City that stretches from the Inner Sunset to the Western Addition and includes Haight-Ashbury and Japantown.

"In an exceptional field, Ross Mirkarimi stands above the crowd," Gonzalez said. "He has wide governmental experience and the ethics and maturity the job demands. He'll be a strong, yet pragmatic, progressive voice."

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"'It's very important for the strategy of a candidate to know who is going to come in last and who is going to come in first and second,' Stearns said. 'In D5 it's likely that Robert Haaland and Ross Mirkarimi will come in at one or two.'

Assuming Haaland and Mirkarimi would come in at the top, it's in their best interest to campaign for the votes of the candidates expected to lose, he said."