Scant 255 votes separate Leno, Breed

Former state Sen. Mark Leno is holding on to his lead in the San Francisco mayor’s race against Board of Supervisors President London Breed, but his lead has shrunk significantly.

Only 255 votes now separate the candidates after the Director of the Department of Elections John Arntz gave reporters the latest figures late Thursday afternoon.

Leno now has 74,424 votes (50.09 percent) while Breed has 74,169 votes (49.91 percent).

Leno had maintained a more than 1,100-vote lead since the night of the election.

Arntz said the department still has to 84,000 ballots to process.

The department has processed another 8,000 ballots since Wednesday’s update. The post office dropped off 5,000 mail-in ballots but only 3,000 were valid due to the postmark date.

Another 5,000 mail-in ballots dropped off at polling places were also processed, said Arntz. The department is also going over the Pier 48 warehouse where election materials are held to see if any ballots have been misplaced, said Arntz.

The department will give its next update at 4 p.m. on Friday.

Department staff will work through the weekend to continue processing the vote-by-mail ballots.

Jerold Chinn

Jerold serves as a reporter and San Francisco Bureau Chief for SFBay covering transportation and occasionally City Hall and the Mayor's Office in San Francisco. His work on transportation has been recognized by the San Francisco Press Club. Born and raised in San Francisco, he graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in journalism. Jerold previously wrote for the San Francisco Public Press, a nonprofit, noncommercial news organization. When not reporting, you can find Jerold taking Muni to check out new places to eat in the city.