{"id":493405,"date":"2026-10-12T08:52:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T08:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/493405\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T08:52:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T08:52:15","slug":"san-francisco-dems-endorse-district-8-candidate-gary-mccoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/493405\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Dems endorse District 8 candidate Gary McCoy"},"content":{"rendered":"

San Francisco\u2019s Democratic Party on Sunday evening coalesced behind Gary McCoy for District 8 supervisor in a fraught, three-hour emergency meeting necessitated by the withdrawal of prior endorsee Manny Yekutiel<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yekutiel, far and away the favorite to win and the party\u2019s preferred candidate<\/a>, dropped out of the contest on the heels of a second on-the-record sexual assault allegation<\/a> published on Oct. 1.<\/p>\n

Tonight the party rescinded Yekutiel\u2019s endorsement with a 29-0 vote. Then it endorsed McCoy by a 20-0 vote, with eight votes for no endorsement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following the most recent allegations against Yekutiel, Democratic Party Chair Nancy Tung<\/a> apologized for the party\u2019s earlier endorsement of him<\/a> and its inability to appropriately handle sexual misconduct allegations<\/a>. Critics, including some elected members of the local Democratic Party, have called upon<\/a> Tung to resign or relinquish leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most of her fellow party members, however, let it be known prior to today\u2019s meeting that they favored keeping her<\/a> in her position.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In June, political organizer Brad Chapin claimed Yekutiel painfully grabbed his testicles at a house party in 2020<\/a>. A Democratic Party investigation lasted five weeks<\/a>, despite the rudimentary finding that Chapin\u2019s allegation did not fall under the aegis of the party\u2019s sexual misconduct policy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Aug. 26, Democratic Party members were given a terse, half-page note<\/a> informing them that the policy was not applicable and stating that it could not be determined whether or not a sexual assault took place. On that same day, the party voted to endorse Yekutiel by a slim 12-10 tally.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AManny Yekutiel outside the entrance to the mayor\u2019s office, where a crowd gathers after Daniel Lurie\u2019s swearing-in on Jan. 8, 2025. Photo by Abigail Van Neely.<\/p>\n

Tung addressed the criticism she\u2019s faced since the second sexual assault against Yekutiel and the implosion of his campaign.<\/p>\n

She claimed efforts to push her out would ensure that nobody else would ever address the \u201cmessy problem\u201d of sexual misconduct in local political circles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to get right,\u201d she said. \u201cBut there\u2019s somebody that I made a promise to and I want to go back and center around the person who is most harmed by this policy and its failures. And that\u2019s Brad Chapin.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Prior to this evening\u2019s meeting, Tung and Chapin had a conversation where they agreed to \u201ccontinue working on this policy to make it better, to make it better for survivors, to make it better for for us in political positions, to make decisions, to make better decisions, and to make the process more transparent,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before any endorsements were voted on or Tung responded to her critics, there were nearly two hours of charged public comments. Some speakers defended Tung and expressed their support for keeping her as chair; others called on her to resign.<\/p>\n

Chapin made an appearance, urging the party to sign a \u201cBelieve Brad\u201d campaign petition<\/a> that would move his allegations to California Attorney General Rob Bonta. <\/p>\n

Next, he asked for the party to sign a declaration that cites its support for Ivy Lee, the director of the city\u2019s office of victim services, \u201cand all of their requests for SFPD to make real changes to how sexual assault investigations are conducted in San Francisco.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite critics and attendees who expressed during public comment for Tung to resign from leadership, no official efforts were made tonight to do so. One of those critics did step down, though: Democratic Party member Gordon Mar wrote an email to Tung at shortly before 10 p.m. announcing he was quitting \u2014\u00a0 \u201ceffective immediately.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The San Francisco Democratic Party \u201chas become an absolute embarrassment to most people who uphold democratic values. And tonight\u2019s special meeting is just the latest example of this,\u201d Mar said at tonight\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cChair Tung, under your leadership and this billionaire-backed majority \u2026 the San Francisco Democratic Party has essentially become a protection racket for wealthy donors and political insiders.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tung was unmoved.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf people do not want me to represent them as a Democrat in the leadership \u2026 I\u2019m sure that I will be voted out at some point in time,\u201d she said. \u201cBut for now, I am committed to remaining chair.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Francisco\u2019s Democratic Party on Sunday evening coalesced behind Gary McCoy for District 8 supervisor in a fraught,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-493405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}