Copyright The New York Times
Representative Nancy Pelosi announced on Thursday that she would retire after a 39-year career in the House when her term ends in early 2027, but the battle for her seat started heating up weeks before she told constituents. Two candidates — a wealthy progressive who made his mark working for Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a longtime state senator who has championed new housing construction — have already started their 2026 campaigns in earnest. Local leaders and campaign strategists have speculated that others may still join the contest in San Francisco, a city of rough-and-tumble politics whose politicians have had outsize success on the national stage. Ms. Pelosi has held her seat for nearly four decades, and it was a launchpad for her to become the first woman to serve as House speaker. State Senator Scott Wiener, a Democrat who has represented San Francisco since 2016, has long had his eyes on his city’s main House seat — whenever Ms. Pelosi retired. For years, he said he would not run unless Ms. Pelosi stepped down. Many thought that she would retire in early 2025 after leaving the speakership in 2023. But she remained in office, delaying Mr. Wiener’s pursuit of the seat. This year, he decided he would wait no longer. In an unexpected move, Mr. Wiener announced in October that he would enter the race even if Ms. Pelosi ran for re-election. Some Democrats have held on to House seats for so long that Mr. Wiener, even at age 55, is part of the next generation of hopefuls. He enters the campaign with strong name recognition in the city and is likely to draw upon the political relationships he has built in the State Capitol. By San Francisco standards, Mr. Wiener is considered a moderate and a business-friendly Democrat. Almost anywhere else, though, he would be considered a tried-and-true liberal. He has made his name in recent years as a champion of the YIMBY, or “yes in my backyard,” movement, having pushed through legislation forcing cities to approve more construction to solve the state’s housing crisis. He is also known for his L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy, and if he wins, he would become the first gay person to represent San Francisco in federal elected office. A disrupter with tech money enters from the left. Saikat Chakrabarti is not a household name in San Francisco. At least not yet. Mr. Chakrabarti, 39, became wealthy as one of the first employees at Stripe, a payment processing company, and has devoted his life to progressive politics for much of the last decade. In 2018, he was the campaign manager for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez when she was an underdog candidate for a House seat in New York. He served as her chief of staff when she took office and quickly outraged members of the Democratic establishment. Including Ms. Pelosi. He issued broadsides against Democrats who he felt weren’t attacking President Trump in public with the ferocity he wanted. It wasn’t long before rank-and-file House members demanded his ouster. And shortly after a closed-door meeting that Ms. Pelosi held with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, he left his job on Capitol Hill. Some in the California political class saw his entry this year as a revenge tour. Mr. Chakrabarti says that it is not personal, that he wants to restore progressive values in the Democratic Party and that voters are ready for new leadership. He will have many millions of dollars to spend in a city that is only 47 square miles and has 532,000 registered voters. Strategists in San Francisco wondered if one reason Ms. Pelosi waited so long to announce her decision to retire was that she might have felt she was the only one who could defeat Mr. Chakrabarti. Ms. Pelosi has declined this year to discuss her plans, though she did say in a CNN interview that aired this week that she had no doubt she would win another term if she were to run again. With near certainty, Mr. Chakrabarti will not have Ms. Pelosi’s endorsement. Who else may join the race? She has not entered the race yet, and she has deflected questions this year from The New York Times about whether she would run. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday. Another possible contender is Connie Chan, a San Francisco supervisor who represents the Richmond District, north of Golden Gate Park. Ms. Chan, 47, is a progressive ally of the elder Ms. Pelosi and has strong labor ties. She has spent much of her career in city government, once working as an administrator at the parks department and serving as an aide to supervisors and to Kamala Harris in the district attorney’s office. Robyn Burke, one of her legislative aides, declined to say whether Ms. Chan planned to run. “Today is about honoring Speaker Emerita Pelosi,” Ms. Burke said. Laurel Rosenhall contributed reporting.
