2018 San Francisco mayoral special election
Ed Lee, who was appointed Mayor of San Francisco in 2011 following Gavin Newsom's election as Lieutenant Governor of California, elected to a full term in 2011, and reelected in 2015, died of cardiac arrest on December 12, 2017. London Breed, the President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, became the city's acting mayor.
Gavin Newsom
In 2003, Newsom was elected the 42nd mayor of San Francisco, the city's youngest in a century. Newsom was re-elected in 2007 with 72 percent of the vote. He was elected Lieutenant Governor of California in 2010, alongside Jerry Brown, and was re-elected in 2014. In February 2015, Newsom announced his candidacy for Governor of California in the 2018 election. On June 5, 2018, he finished in the top two of the non-partisan blanket primary, and defeated Republican John H. Cox in the general election on November 6.