County · Statewide General Election
San Francisco Board of Supervisors, District 8
Draft candidate list — early preview until the state’s official list publishes on August 27, 2026.
On the ballot
- Darshini Patel
- Michael T. Nguyen
- Emanuel "Manny" Yekutiel
- Gary McCoy
This person holds your district's seat on San Francisco's 11-member Board of Supervisors: city-county laws, the budget, and land use.
Four candidates are on the ranked-choice ballot for an open seat: Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman is termed out, and the Castro, Noe Valley, Glen Park and Diamond Heights choose a new supervisor for the first time in eight years. None of the four has held elected city office — the field is a civic-space owner, a veteran City Hall and policy aide, an attorney and Democratic committee member, and a tech-operations organizer.
The winner holds one of 11 seats on the Board of Supervisors, the city-county's legislature: it writes ordinances, approves the budget the mayor proposes, and decides the land-use questions that determine what gets built where. A four-year term, with a two-term limit.
With no incumbent, this is a choice among theories of preparation: years inside City Hall as an aide and policy advocate, civic convening and small-business ownership, law and party organizing, or operations experience from industry and national campaigns. The ranked-choice ballot means second choices matter — you rank the field, not just one name.
Gary McCoy
A longtime aide to U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi and former vice president of policy and public affairs at HealthRight 360, a health and recovery services provider, with earlier roles in the city's parks department and legislative offices (per the Examiner).
Strengths
The field's deepest resume of government work — federal constituent service, city legislative staff experience, and policy leadership at a major health nonprofit.
Trade-offs
All of it is staff and advocacy work: the record shows service in others' offices, not legislative votes of his own.
Keep in mind
Aide-to-office is a well-worn San Francisco path; the judgment his resume asks for is whether insider fluency reads to you as readiness or as continuity with the City Hall you already have.
Michael T. Nguyen
An intellectual-property attorney, drag performer, and LGBTQ advocate, elected to the San Francisco Democratic Party's central committee in March 2024 (per the Examiner).
Strengths
A working lawyer's command of process, plus a March 2024 election win for a Democratic central-committee seat.
Trade-offs
Party office is not city office — the committee role carries no legislative record — and his early fundraising trailed the field's leaders (per the Examiner).
Keep in mind
A first campaign for city office run from outside City Hall: his case rests on community advocacy and legal training rather than government experience.
Darshini Patel
A tech-operations veteran who helped launch DoorDash's meal-delivery service in hundreds of markets, with field-organizing experience on Barack Obama's 2012 campaign and Kamala Harris' 2024 get-out-the-vote effort in New Hampshire. Her platform centers childcare, housing, and transit (per the Examiner).
Strengths
Operations experience at scale from industry plus national campaign field work — a background unlike anyone else's in this race.
Trade-offs
The thinnest documented San Francisco civic record in the field, and fundraising far behind McCoy's, per the Examiner's race coverage.
Keep in mind
Her bet is that delivery skills transfer from industry to district services; there is no city record yet to test that against, so her platform specifics carry the weight.
Emanuel "Manny" Yekutiel
Owner of Manny's, the civic-events space and restaurant in the Mission, and co-founder of the Civic Joy Fund with now-Mayor Daniel Lurie. Earlier, he was Northern California deputy finance director for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and chief of staff at the immigration-focused nonprofit fwd.us. He led the field's early fundraising (per the Examiner).
Strengths
The field's widest civic network and strongest early fundraising, built through a venue that hosts much of the city's political life.
Trade-offs
His documented closeness to the mayor — they co-founded a fund together — cuts both ways for a legislative seat meant to check the mayor's administration.
Keep in mind
He would arrive as the mayor's most natural ally in this field; whether that promises effectiveness or deference is the judgment this race asks of you.
Financial info
- Small donors
- Public matching funds
Darshini Patel
$20,354 raised
- Small donors$1,564100%
Michael T. Nguyen
$144,728 raised
- Small donors$7,6998%
- Public matching funds$89,36492%
Emanuel "Manny" Yekutiel
$764,341 raised
- Small donors$9,8884%
- Public matching funds$255,00096%
Gary McCoy
$260,136 raised
- Small donors$10,3636%
- Public matching funds$155,30494%
1Public matching funds are city money earned through small-donor support; totals here combine reported contributions with approved public funds. Figures are each committee's latest FPPC filings as summarized by the SF Ethics Commission's campaign-finance dashboard and the city's public-financing dataset, retrieved 2026-08-21.
Source review: Very strong (97/100) · 4 cited sources
Official records anchor this contest, with multiple sources checked.
- sf.gov (opens in a new tab)SF Department of Elections — Candidates, November 3, 2026 General Election
- sfexaminer.com (opens in a new tab)San Francisco Examiner — 2026 Board of Supervisors race coverage
- sfelections.org (opens in a new tab)SF Department of Elections — Certified results, June 2, 2026 election
- campaign.sfethics.org (opens in a new tab)SF Ethics Commission — campaign-finance dashboard and public-financing dataset
Last updated August 21, 2026.