From left, Supervisor Connie Chan, Saikat Chakrabarti and state Sen. Scott Wiener are running for the House seat being vacated by Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle and Jana Ašenbrennerová/For the S.F. Chronicle
San Francisco residents have had the same representative in Congress, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, for nearly four decades.
The candidates in the race to succeed her have been introducing themselves across the city for the past several months, often going door to door and wooing voters individually. That process has shown one of the candidates is far more recognizable than the others.
During canvassing efforts in which I shadowed San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan and former tech engineer Saikat Chakrabarti, both encountered voters who voluntarily brought up the third candidate in the race, state Sen. Scott Wiener.
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The snapshot emphasized how as one voter put it to Chakrabarti, “you got tough competition in this neighborhood. Scott Wiener is pretty well liked and was responsive as a supervisor.” Chakrabarti and Chan are chasing someone who has superior name identification from representing San Francisco in City Hall and the Legislature since 2010 and from his ubiquitous presence around the city since then, from local Democratic club meetings to the annual Hunky Jesus competition in Dolores Park.
Saikat Chakrabarti introduces himself to residents in San Francisco’s Dolores Park neighborhood in January.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
Chakrabarti has bottomless personal wealth — if he chooses to use it — to introduce himself to voters, and Chan has crucial union support. But the question over the next few months will be whether that will be enough to overcome Wiener’s nearly two decades of a shoe-leather approach to engaging voters.
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Chakrabarti may be chummy with the nation’s leading progressives, but relatively few San Francisco voters know him. So when Chakrabarti knocked on a voter’s door to ask for their support on a Saturday afternoon in January, he started by name-checking people they might have heard of before.
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“Hey, I’m Saikat and I used to work with AOC and Bernie and wrote the Green New Deal, and now I’m running for Congress here in San Francisco,” he told people at a house near Dolores Park. The residents said they appreciated him running but are longtime friends of Wiener’s. Chakrabarti nodded, thanked them and moved to the next door.
More than once, Chakrabarti ran into people who declined to commit to supporting him because they personally knew Wiener — not surprising in a neighborhood that Wiener represented when he served on the Board of Supervisors. “When they know him personally, that’s a harder stretch” to gain their support, he conceded. Chakrabarti was undeterred and tirelessly knocked on every door in multiple apartment buildings and climbed countless sets of stairs on some of the city’s steepest hills.
One person who said his name was David and called himself a personal friend of Wiener’s fired a tough question at Chakrabarti.
“I appreciate your service to AOC,” the man said, “but I’m a little uncomfortable that you’re representing San Francisco having lived away for so long.”
Saikat Chakrabarti addresses campaign volunteers in San Francisco’s Dolores Park in January.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
The dig mirrors what Wiener has been saying on his social media feeds in recent days: Chakrabarti doesn’t have deep San Francisco roots. Wiener has described him as “this rich guy who wants to buy San Francisco’s seat” and pointed out that Chakrabarti listed Maryland as his primary residence in 2018 when he was working for Ocasio-Cortez. Chakrabarti has loaned his campaign $1.7 million, according to the most recent federal campaign filings.
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Online, Chakrabarti’s defenders have accused Wiener of making a “nativist attack” on Chakrabarti, the son of Indian immigrants. But voters were posing similar questions directly to Chakrabarti weeks before Wiener’s post.
Chakrabarti told me in between door knocks that he’s been rooted in the city for more than a decade. “So I moved here in 2009. I only spent about four years (away since then) working for Bernie. What is that? Sixteen (years) minus 4½ years. Most of my adult life, I’ve been raising a kid here, bought a place here, back in 2012.”
Some voters answering the doors on this day were nonplussed.
David thanked him for “your service to the party” and closed the door.
Chakrabarti knows that Wiener has long ties in the city. But he said his experience working in a hyper-partisan, closely divided Congress is harder than passing legislation backed by a Democratic supermajority in Sacramento. Chakrabarti worked with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats to introduce the Green New Deal in 2018. While it didn’t go anywhere in Congress, it was championed by several presidential candidates — including Sen. Bernie Sanders — in the 2020 race. Years later, then-President Joe Biden incorporated many elements of the proposal into his Inflation Reduction Act law in 2022 and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. President Donald Trump’s budget, backed by the Republican-led Congress, eliminated many of those investments last year.
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“If you think that the thing that we really need in D.C. right now is more experienced state legislators, then I’m probably not your guy,” Chakrabarti said. “There’s a lot of very experienced state legislators in D.C. right now, and I don’t think they’re fixing the problem that’s there.”
Chakrabarti told several potential voters that he hopes to enter Congress as part of a wave of candidates who he said “are challenging both Republicans and corporate Democrats and the establishment that’s not working. I’m trying to build this team.”
Saikat Chakrabarti, right, converses with Anthony Falzone in San Francisco’s Dolores Park neighborhood in January.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
Anthony Falzone, a geoscientist Chakrabarti met on his door-knocking route, said he was undecided, but cautioned him that “you got tough competition in this neighborhood. Scott Wiener is pretty well-liked and was responsive as a supervisor, but I’ll definitely take a look.”
Despite his lack of name recognition, there’s no doubt that Chakrabarti has tapped into a well of support and curiosity, particularly among young voters. Roughly 200 people, the vast majority of whom appeared to be under 40, met at Dolores Park to canvas for him on this day. After knocking doors, a couple dozen went out for beers together, a sign of the community-building the campaign is fostering. If that community were to grow, he may surprise people on Election Day, much as former progressive Supervisor Matt Gonzalez surprised Gavin Newsom during their 2003 race for mayor. Gonzalez lost but he was backed by energized young progressive voters, who made the race surprisingly close.
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Chan takes what she calls “a soft touch” when she knocks on doors. She doesn’t blast voters with her elevator pitch on the doorstep. Often, she doesn’t have to — she already knows the people answering the door, particularly in this Sunset neighborhood. Sometimes she speaks to voters in English, others in Chinese. Sometimes, both.
“Oh, my God. Is this your house?” Chan said when she recognized Thuy Dang at the door to her Sunset District home. “How are you doing? I’m running for Congress, you know?”
Dang nodded. Her son and Chan’s are friends. She’s supporting Chan.
Supervisor Connie Chan chats with Jeanie Low while campaigning in San Francisco’s Sunset District in February.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
Another woman also recognized Chan when she came to her door. “You spoke at my son’s school — Alamo Elementary School” in the Richmond District — and called her son to the door. A couple of people answering the doors were San Francisco public school teachers, including Christina Muraco. Chan assured each, days before they began their four-day strike in early February, “I will be there with you. We have been endorsed by both the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers.”
A few blocks later, Chan bumped into two women walking down the street. One recognized Chan. “What are you doing over here?” Joyce Tom asked Chan. “Don’t you represent the Richmond?”
Yes, Chan replied, “but now I’m running for Congress.”
“I don’t know much about where you stand, because you’re over there,” Tom said, pointing in the general direction of Chan’s supervisorial district, which covers the Richmond District, Golden Gate Park, Lincoln Park, University of San Francisco, Sea Cliff and Presidio Terrace. “I know Scott Wiener’s running. Are you left of him or right of him?”
Chan takes a breath. She’s not keen on ripping her opponents but does want to show a contrast.
Supervisor Connie Chan leaves a personalized note for a constituent as she knocks on doors in the Sunset District in February.
Yalonda M. James/S.F. Chronicle
“Even as a local district supervisor, we really have been consistent on supporting working people,” Chan said, noting that she is the only candidate endorsed by the San Francisco Labor Council, the California Teachers Association and UNITE HERE, which represents hotel workers. Wiener was endorsed last month by the California Democratic Party.
“I think that tells you that we’re endorsed by working people. While I would say the state senator has been not only endorsed but funded by the billionaires like Chris Larsens of the world,” Chan said. (Larsen, the CEO of Ripple, a cryptocurrency firm, has given $3,300 to Wiener’s campaign.) Chan encouraged them to call or email her with any questions about the campaign, then made a beeline to the next house.
Tom said Wiener “has been in Sacramento for a while now, and he’s more of a politician. Connie sounds more like someone you meet on the street.”
Tom remains undecided, but said “I’m leaning away from Wiener.”
I went door-knocking in Cole Valley with Wiener on Valentine’s Day morning. He brought roses to leave on the doorsteps of homes where nobody answered. His biggest opponent on this day was indecision: Several folks — such as Phill Manula, 30 — said they knew of Wiener but had not focused yet on the June 2 primary, in which the top two finishers will advance to the general election in November.
Manula would like to see Pelosi’s successor focus on the high cost of housing — one of Wiener’s top priorities in the Legislature, where he passed several measures designed to make it easier to build housing, particularly near public transit. Manula estimated the rent for his apartment could probably get him and his partner a large home in other parts of the state.
State Sen. Scott Wiener speaks with residents Peter Weiss and Cindy Morton at their doorway while handing them campaign literature and roses in February.
Jana Ašenbrennerová/For the S.F. Chronicle
“We’re both born and raised in California, and we don’t want to be priced out of California. We want to be able to live here,” Manula said.
Several voters recognized Wiener at the door or as the 6-foot-7 state legislator walked down the street. Some even cited specific legislative efforts of Wiener’s from his tenure on the Board of Supervisors.
Jim Angelos stopped Wiener on the street to thank him for a 2012 resolution he introduced to make it easier for food trucks to operate in the city. Peter Weiss, 69, answered the door and thanked him for securing city funds several years ago to help renovate the Randall Museum.
A few doors away, a library worker who declined to give her name said she is familiar with Wiener, but has not committed.
And then there was Garrett Brinker, a board member of the SF Bicycle Coalition and self-described “Scott Wiener superfan.” He answered the door and said, “Senator Wiener! How’s it going?” Brinker appreciated Wiener supporting legislation that reformed the California Environmental Quality Act.
Nobody Wiener encountered that day asked him about his position on Gaza.
State Sen. Scott Wiener places campaign literature and a rose at a front door while canvassing for his congressional campaign in February.
Jana Ašenbrennerová/For the S.F. Chronicle
Over the years, Wiener has been regularly approached by pro-Palestinian activists on the street or at the airport challenging his positions while filming him. At a House candidate forum in January, Wiener declined to take a “yes” or “no” position during a lightning round in which candidates were asked: “Is Israel committing genocide in Gaza?” Days later, Wiener changed course. “I’ve stopped short of calling it genocide, but I can’t anymore,” Wiener wrote on X.
On this day, it was all Valentines for Wiener.