June D4 vote turns on Lurie pick

San Francisco’s west-side supervisor race is turning into a test of whether Mayor Daniel Lurie can install his own people and then get voters to ratify the choice a few months later. Lurie appointed Alan Wong to the District 4 seat on December 1, 2025, and Wong is now on the June 2, 2026 ballot to keep the job through January 2027. (sf.gov) (ballotpedia.org) District 4 is the Sunset and Parkside, and the seat has been unstable for months. Joel Engardio was recalled in 2024 after the fight over Proposition K and the Great Highway, and Lurie used the vacancy to pick Wong instead of letting another faction define the district first. (kqed.org) (sfexaminer.com) That is why the June vote is getting treated as more than a neighborhood race. If Wong wins, Lurie can say Sunset voters accepted his handpicked supervisor; if Wong loses, the mayor’s first big appointment to the Board of Supervisors gets rejected at the ballot box. (sf.gov) (sfstandard.com) There are five qualified candidates on the June ballot, and Wong is running as the appointed incumbent against Natalie Gee, Albert Chow, David Lee, and Jeremy Greco. The winner serves only the remainder of the term through January 2027, and District 4 voters go back to the polls again in November 2026 for a full four-year term. (sf.gov) (ballotpedia.org) That short runway changes the politics. A candidate has to win in June and then almost immediately raise money for November, which gives an advantage to anyone who already has donors, endorsements, and City Hall relationships lined up. (ballotpedia.org) (prismnews.com) Wong has those ties because Lurie’s orbit is already behind him. Mission Local reported that Wong received a $500 contribution from Lurie, plus donations from the mayor’s chief of staff Staci Slaughter, public affairs director Han Zou, and board liaison Adam Thongsavat. (missionlocal.org) But the race is not a simple mayoral coronation. Mission Local reported in February that Natalie Gee had raised more than all her opponents combined and was the only District 4 candidate at that point to qualify for public matching funds, with about $55,000 cash on hand as of December 31. (missionlocal.org) (campaign.sfethics.org) The local issue hanging over all of this is still the Great Highway. Bay City News reported that Wong was appointed after Engardio’s recall, which was driven mainly by anger over support for permanently closing part of the Great Highway to cars, and Wong has tried to position himself as closer to Sunset voters who wanted that road reopened. (localnewsmatters.org) (sfexaminer.com) That is where the second piece of news lands. On April 8, 2026, Lurie announced Mike Levine, who has been running Massachusetts’ Medicaid program, as the new executive director of San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing after Shireen McSpadden said she would retire on June 30. (abc7news.com) (missionlocal.org) Levine is not a District 4 issue in the narrow sense, but the appointment adds to the same argument around Lurie: he is importing senior officials and asking voters to trust his judgment on city services before results are fully visible. Mission Local described Levine as a Massachusetts Medicaid executive, and ABC7 reported the hire came as San Francisco faces a $643 million budget deficit. (missionlocal.org) ([abc7news.com](https://abc7news.com/post/san-francisco-names-mike-levine-new-leader-department-hom