For the first time since Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi announced her retirement, the candidates running to succeed her made their case to voters before a live audience on Wednesday evening.
During a roughly two-hour program at a UC Law auditorium, state Sen. Scott Wiener, Supervisor Connie Chan, and former congressional staffer Saikat Chakrabarti — all Democrats — touted their bona fides, but also laid bare their political weaknesses as the 2026 election cycle gears up.
The crowd of roughly 400 people booed Wiener’s stance on Gaza. Chan sometimes struggled to point to specific policies she’d enact. Newcomer Chakrabarti played catch-up to a crowd largely familiar with his opponents, who have served San Francisco in government for more than a decade.
Hot-button issue: Israel
Wiener drew the night’s heaviest jeers when he declined to answer a yes-or-no lightning-round question that asked if Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. His opponents both held aloft signs reading “yes,” while Wiener rested his sign in his lap.
Audience members promptly shouted “shame on you,” “sellout,” and “free Palestine.”
In an interview with reporters afterward, Wiener lamented there wasn’t time during the forum to describe his position on a complex international conflict.
“Hamas should not be running Gaza,” Wiener added, but the Israeli government’s killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians, including children, “is an absolute moral stain and horrifying to me.”
When asked why he declined to label it genocide, Wiener said, “People can label it whatever noun or adjective they want to put on it.”
Punching bags: AI, Trump, billionaires, and PG&E
When they weren’t subtly sniping at each other, the trio denounced a variety of forces they say are hurting San Franciscans.
Chan’s line of attack was clear: income inequality is the source of many of San Francisco’s ills. She touted her history as the only candidate to electorally “beat back billionaires, twice.”
“We cannot take back Congress by cozying up to billionaires,” Chan said.
Wiener was the only candidate on stage to decline to take a position on a state ballot measure proposed by the SEIU union to tax billionaires’ assets. He said he prefers to see if it garners enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. Chan and Chakrabarti, meanwhile, supported it.
Chakrabarti saved his cannons for the artificial intelligence industry, calling for stronger government regulations to preserve living wages amid the technological shift.
“This is about control,” he said. “We have a few CEO’s right now, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, who are deciding the entire future of our society. We cannot let them have that power.”
Wiener called President Donald Trump a “walking impeachable offense” who captured Venezuela president Nicolás Maduro not for the sake of his oppressed citizens, but for oil and power.
Following the spate of electrical power outages in the city, all three candidates agreed there should be some form of public takeover of PG&E.
Moves like Pelosi
With Pelosi’s retirement, San Francisco is losing a representative who’s been in office since 1987 and was arguably the most powerful woman in American political history. But each candidate audaciously argued they too could blossom into national leaders.
“This is a woman who moved mountains,” Wiener said while also patting himself on the back for passing some of the “biggest, toughest, impactful laws California has seen in recent memory,” a record he said he would continue in Congress.
Chan repped her time as Board of Supervisors budget chairperson, working alongside Lurie to sock away $400 million to defend San Francisco against federal cuts to Medicaid and Medicare by the Trump administration.
Showing his connection to another nationally prominent Democrat, Chakrabarti repeatedly referred to his time working in D.C. in New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office as her chief of staff.
Chakrabarti accused his opponents of legislating through “backroom deals” in cozy political environments where Democrats rule the roost, such as San Francisco and Sacramento. That’s not possible in Washington, he said, where Democrats have to out-organize Republicans.
“When you’re in the middle of an authoritarian coup, civil society is the bulwark against fascism,” Chakrabarti said. “If you organize in collective blocs, you can push back against this administration.”
MAGA stamp of disapproval
Wiener’s legislative history is filled with support for LGBTQ rights, including protecting the privacy of gender transitions, barring discrimination against queer seniors in long-term care facilities, and establishing California as a refuge for transgender youth.
This has earned him the ire of high-profile Republicans at the national level, something he was eager to mention.
“As your state senator, there’s a reason why [former Fox News host] Megan Kelly tweeted (opens in new tab)after I got into this race saying ‘you cannot let Scott Wiener go to Congress,’ and why [former Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene (opens in new tab) attacks me so much,” he said, “because I’ve gone to the mat sticking up particularly for LGBTQ kids, and particularly for trans kids.”
Touting his webpage “Scott’s MAGA Fan Club (opens in new tab)” earned Wiener some of the first applause of the evening.
San Francisco IQ
From supporting housing development in the Bayview and on Geary Boulevard, to her time spent translating in Cantonese for attorneys serving the Chinese community, Chan’s remarks were peppered with everyday San Franciscan perspectives.
“San Francisco’s rent is too high, and the cost of living is too high, and that’s the most pressing thought on many of us living in San Francisco,” she said.
Wiener’s remarks carried similar shades, as he touched on the need to bolster Muni funding, help homeless youth who are disproportionately from the LGBTQ community, and protect HIV positive seniors from discrimination.
By contrast, many of Chakrabarti’s talking points felt like they could’ve been directed at progressive Democrats in any venue across the country. This particularly stood out when he told the crowd inequality is something “we don’t talk about enough.”
Maybe that’s true in the Capitol, where Chakrabarti worked, but in San Francisco, it’s a constant topic of conversation as tech workers have been decried as gentrifiers and protesters have planted smoke bombs in front of Google buses to decry evictions (opens in new tab).