{"id":125362,"date":"2026-01-08T17:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T17:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/125362\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T17:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T17:01:08","slug":"sf-house-candidates-square-off-for-1st-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/125362\/","title":{"rendered":"SF House candidates square off for 1st time"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time since Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi announced her retirement<\/a>, the candidates running to succeed her made their case to voters before a live audience on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n

During a roughly two-hour program at a UC Law auditorium, state Sen. Scott Wiener, Supervisor Connie Chan, and former congressional staffer Saikat Chakrabarti \u2014 all Democrats \u2014 touted their bona fides, but also laid bare their political weaknesses as the 2026 election cycle gears up.<\/p>\n

The crowd of roughly 400 people booed Wiener\u2019s stance on Gaza. Chan sometimes struggled to point to specific policies she\u2019d 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hot-button issue: Israel<\/p>\n

Wiener drew the night\u2019s 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 \u201cyes,\u201d while Wiener rested his sign in his lap. <\/p>\n

Audience members promptly shouted \u201cshame on you,\u201d \u201csellout,\u201d and \u201cfree Palestine.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an interview with reporters afterward, Wiener lamented there wasn\u2019t time during the forum to describe his position on a complex international conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cHamas should not be running Gaza,\u201d Wiener added, but the Israeli government\u2019s killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians, including children, \u201cis an absolute moral stain and horrifying to me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When asked why he declined to label it genocide, Wiener said, \u201cPeople can label it whatever noun or adjective they want to put on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Punching bags: AI, Trump, billionaires, and PG&E<\/p>\n

When they weren\u2019t subtly sniping at each other, the trio denounced a variety of forces they say are hurting San Franciscans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chan\u2019s line of attack was clear: income inequality is the source of many of San Francisco\u2019s ills. She touted her history as the only candidate to electorally<\/a> \u201cbeat back billionaires, twice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot take back Congress by cozying up to billionaires,\u201d Chan said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u2019 assets. He said he prefers to see if it garners enough signatures to qualify for the ballot. Chan and Chakrabarti, meanwhile, supported it.<\/p>\n

Chakrabarti saved his cannons for the artificial intelligence industry, calling for stronger government regulations to preserve living wages amid the technological shift.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is about control,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have a few CEO\u2019s right now, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, who are deciding the entire future of our society. We cannot let them have that power.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wiener called President Donald Trump a \u201cwalking impeachable offense\u201d who captured Venezuela president Nicol\u00e1s Maduro not for the sake of his oppressed citizens, but for oil and power.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following the spate of electrical power outages in the city, all three candidates agreed there should be some form of public takeover<\/a> of PG&E.<\/p>\n

Moves like Pelosi<\/p>\n

With Pelosi\u2019s retirement, San Francisco is losing a representative who\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a woman who moved mountains,\u201d Wiener said while also patting himself on the back for passing\u00a0 some of the \u201cbiggest, toughest, impactful laws California has seen in recent memory,\u201d a record he said he would continue in Congress.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u2019s office as her chief of staff.<\/p>\n

Chakrabarti accused his opponents of legislating through \u201cbackroom deals\u201d in cozy political environments where Democrats rule the roost, such as San Francisco and Sacramento. That\u2019s not possible in Washington, he said, where Democrats have to out-organize Republicans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re in the middle of an authoritarian coup, civil society is the bulwark against fascism,\u201d Chakrabarti said. \u201cIf you organize in collective blocs, you can push back against this administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

MAGA stamp of disapproval<\/p>\n

Wiener\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This has earned him the ire of high-profile Republicans at the national level, something he was eager to mention.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs your state senator, there\u2019s a reason why [former Fox\u00a0 News host] Megan Kelly tweeted (opens in new tab)<\/a>after I got into this race saying \u2018you cannot let Scott Wiener go to Congress,\u2019 and why [former Rep.] Marjorie Taylor Greene (opens in new tab)<\/a> attacks me so much,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause I\u2019ve gone to the mat sticking up particularly for LGBTQ kids, and particularly for trans kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Touting his webpage \u201cScott\u2019s MAGA Fan Club (opens in new tab)<\/a>\u201d earned Wiener some of the first applause of the evening.<\/p>\n

San Francisco IQ<\/p>\n

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\u2019s remarks were peppered with everyday San Franciscan perspectives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSan Francisco\u2019s rent is too high, and the cost of living is too high, and that\u2019s the most pressing thought on many of us living in San Francisco,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Wiener\u2019s remarks carried similar shades, as he touched on the need to bolster Muni funding,\u00a0 help homeless youth who are disproportionately from the LGBTQ community, and protect HIV positive seniors from discrimination.<\/p>\n

By contrast, many of Chakrabarti\u2019s talking points felt like they could\u2019ve been directed at progressive Democrats in any venue across the country. This particularly stood out when he told the crowd inequality is something \u201cwe don\u2019t talk about enough.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s true in the Capitol, where Chakrabarti worked, but in San Francisco, it\u2019s 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)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time since Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi announced her retirement, the candidates running to succeed her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[1752,8670,989,8669,101,103,102,1621,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-125362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-congress","9":"tag-connie-chan","10":"tag-elections","11":"tag-nancy-pelosi","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","14":"tag-san-francisco-news","15":"tag-scott-wiener","16":"tag-sf","17":"tag-sf-headlines","18":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}