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.
Joel Engardio
Engardio was appointed to the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee in July 2015 and served until July 2016. The DCCC is the governing body for the local Democratic Party.
In 2016, Engardio was the only candidate endorsed by both the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner in his race for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Engardio finished second in a field of five candidates. He was the first openly gay supervisor candidate to run in San Francisco’s conservative District 7, where half the voters in some precincts supported a 2008 ban on gay marriage.
Engardio serves on the board of directors of San Francisco's Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club  and the political action committee San Francisco Moderates.