1975 San Francisco mayoral election

1975 San Francisco mayoral election

← 1971 November 4, 1975
December 9, 1975
1979 →
 
Candidate George Moscone John J. Barbagelata Dianne Feinstein
Party Democratic Republican Democratic
First-round vote 66,195 40,540 39,344
First-round percentage 31.52% 19.31% 18.74%
Second-round vote 101,528 97,213
Second-round percentage 51.09% 48.91%

 
Candidate John A. Ertola Milton Marks
Party Nonpartisan Republican
First-round vote 30,360 27,910
First-round percentage 14.46% 13.29%

Mayor before election

Joseph Alioto
Democratic

Elected mayor

George Moscone
Democratic

The 1975 mayoral election was held to select the 37th mayor of San Francisco, and was held in two parts. In the November regular election, then-Speaker of the California State Assembly George Moscone placed first with conservative city supervisor John Barbagelata second and moderate supervisor Dianne Feinstein coming in third.[1] Moscone and Barbagelata thus both advanced to the mandated runoff election in December where Moscone narrowly defeated the conservative supervisor by 4,400 votes,[2] a margin of less than 1%.[1]

For the rest of his life, Barbagelata maintained that the People's Temple religious cult, led by Jim Jones, committed election fraud by bussing in out-of-town church members to double and triple vote for Moscone under the registrations of dead voters.[2]

  1. ^ a b Nolte, Carl, CITY HALL SLAYINGS: 25 Years Later, San Francisco Chronicle, November 26, 2003
  2. ^ a b Cothran, George. Barbagelata's Return? Archived 2014-12-07 at the Wayback Machine, San Francisco Weekly, November 18, 1998.