2018 San Francisco mayoral special election
A special election was held for Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco on June 5, 2018. The winner of the election will serve until 2020, filling the unexpired term of Ed Lee, who was elected in 2011 and 2015, and died in office on December 12, 2017. Upon Lee's death, London Breed, President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, became Acting Mayor of San Francisco, but a vote of six supervisors replaced Breed with Supervisor Mark Farrell. The mayoral election was held concurrently with the statewide direct primary election. In San Francisco, the election for the eighth district member of the Board of Supervisors was also on the ballot.
Ed Lee (politician)
In 2010 a vacancy in the office of mayor was impending when incumbent Gavin Newsom was elected as Lieutenant Governor of California. Under the San Francisco City Charter, vacancies in the mayoral office are filled by a majority vote of the Board of Supervisors, in which each supervisor is barred from voting for themselves. Speculation about possible appointees and debate on whether or not the old Board of Supervisors should cast the vote for the new mayor soon followed Newsom's election as lieutenant governor. (Four old supervisors were term-limited and four new people were elected in the 2010 election to take their place.)