From BeyondChron:

Ed Lee took a commanding lead in his race to become San Francisco’s first elected Chinese-American Mayor, with victory coming as soon as tomorrow when the ranked-choice voting process begins. With 100% of votes counted (and prior to the counting of Election Day absentees and the implementation of ranked choice), Lee leads John Avalos by a 31.38% to 18.67% margin, with Dennis Herrera third at 11.27%. David Chiu and Leland Yee rounded out the top five at 8.93% and 7.48% respectively. While Lee was careful not to announce victory before he hit the 51% threshold, the combination of spoiled ballots and Lee’s second place votes from low finishing candidates makes his election virtually certain. One year ago, Ed Lee was the City Administrator who had never sought public office; today, he is on the verge of being handily elected to a four-year term as San Francisco’s Mayor.

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From SF Chronicle:

Appointed San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, a political rookie, holds a commanding lead in his effort to turn his temporary post into a four-year job.

With 16 candidates on the ballot, it will probably take a day or two for clear results to emerge in the city’s first competitive mayor’s race using ranked-choice voting, in which voters can select their top three choices. With 100 percent of the precincts reporting Tuesday night, Lee was the top vote-getter in the first round with more than 31 percent.

At an election night party with supporters, Lee stopped just short of declaring victory after he emerged from the first round of voting with an almost 13-point lead over his closest rival, Supervisor John Avalos.

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