When Rep. Nancy Pelosi walked down Guerrero Street in District 8 on Tuesday, pedestrians and drivers quickly swiveled their heads. Standing beside her chosen candidate in the supervisor race, Gary McCoy, she greeted residents and business owners, including Peter Baqain, owner of the Jump Start Deli and Grocery.
“You should come by for some sandwiches,” he said to Pelosi. “On my tab, no charge.” She replied, “No, no, we can’t, we’d both go to jail. I have to pay.”
The neighborhood canvass Tuesday was a rare moment for Pelosi, who has spent much of the fall rallying Democrats nationally as they capitalize on frustration with the Trump administration and seek to flip the House and the Senate.
But on Tuesday, it was a local affair. “This is a serious person that cares about community and has built relationships respectful of other people’s views,” Pelosi said of McCoy. “He’s so dignified in his advocacy.”
Pelosi and McCoy have a long history. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard
As recently as last week, things were looking hairy for both of Pelosi’s chosen candidates in San Francisco, raising the specter that the Democratic queen’s endorsements in her hometown could go bust at the twilight of her career.
Her chosen replacement in Congress is Supervisor Connie Chan. Though polling has been spotty (opens in new tab), it shows her trailing state Sen. Scott Wiener. (Pelosi says she remains hopeful about the race.)
But McCoy’s fortunes, and with them a piece of Pelosi’s legacy, shifted overnight. On Oct. 1, hours after The Standard published additional allegations against the district candidate front-runner Manny Yekutiel, he pulled out of the race. Yekutiel had been massively outraising McCoy, and he had gained the crucial backing of Mayor Daniel Lurie and Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman, who currently represents the district. Yekutiel has denied the allegations.
Since Yekutiel’s withdrawal, a flood of endorsements (opens in new tab) has come McCoy’s way. Pelosi said the situation involving Yekutiel is unusual.
“I’ve never seen this circumstance like this before, this particular one in San Francisco,” she said. Despite the sudden turn of events, Pelosi said she “always believed Gary was going to win.”
“He has been a collaborator [and an] organizer,” she said. “He has had so many endorsements, so much of labor, for one thing, but other community groups. He was ready.”
McCoy’s main opponent in the race until last week, Manny Yekutiel, had outraised him by a large margin. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard
The two have known each other since the early 2010s. McCoy said he remembers meeting Pelosi at a volunteer event at the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. A former drug user with a rap sheet that includes grand larceny and felony theft, McCoy has served as an aide in City Hall and an intern for Pelosi — “I somehow managed to get it, considering I was in my early 30s” — and rose through the ranks in the congresswoman’s office, most recently helping her with combatting President Donald Trump’s cuts to healthcare. He previously held the role of VP of policy and public affairs for San Francisco’s largest addiction treatment provider, HealthRIGHT 360. He has championed harm reduction as a way to address the city’s drug crisis, a strategy that has fallen out of favor in the Lurie era.
On Tuesday, McCoy and Pelosi spent roughly an hour knocking on doors in the district. Residents spoke about the usual issues: inequality, rising rents, and the state of small businesses. In one instance, the duo chatted with a renter about evictions, an all-too-familiar story as the artificial intelligence boom has caused a drastic increase in rental prices and landlords maneuver to remove tenants.
Asked how he would combat the issue, McCoy said he would ensure sufficient funding for legal aid and keep in place “strong tenant protections and tenant representation.”
Pelosi has been traveling the country for Democrats this November election. | Source: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Standard
Pelosi jumped in: “Gary would make sure that people know their rights.”
Not all the interactions were warm and fluffy.
One resident, Dave Balter, opened the door and said, “We love you, even though we’re disappointed about not taking a stand for human rights in Gaza, and having supported genocide all those years, really disappointed. But other than that, love ya.” Pelosi responded by referring to her vote in July (opens in new tab), in which she was among more than 100 House Democrats in voting to block military assistance to Israel. In one other instance, someone yelled, “Free Palestine” at Pelosi.
Even if the local outing was unusual for Pelosi, she treated it the same way as her national strategy.
“I’m always telling people: You must own the ground, you must walk the precincts, knock on the door,” she said. “The candidate can only get so many places … so when you walk for him, that’s the next best thing.”