State Sen. Scott Wiener is a strategic and effective legislator who rarely lets emotions guide his decisions—much like Nancy Pelosi, whose seat in Congress he would like to fill.
For years, it was a widely-opened secret that Wiener wanted to run for federal office when Pelosi resigned, but he was also deferential to California's senior female politician and made it equally clear that he would wait his turn in the cutthroat and narrow-minded machine of San Francisco politics.
Until now.
San Francisco Standard announced the news on Thursday that Wiener is running in the 2026 elections, although he has not yet officially announced.
It's news that shocked even those deeply immersed in the cutthroat world of San Francisco politics, and set off an inevitable news cycle about whether Pelosi (who was instrumental in eliminating President Biden from the 2024 race due to age-related issues) is Biden herself. It also guarantees a contentious race that will be watched across the country by both MAGAs and the progressive left, both of whom disagree with Wiener.
Oh, drama.
Take it as you will, but several months after hip replacement surgeryPelosi is (literally) back in her heels and raising a ton of dollars for Proposition 50, a ballot initiative designed to gerrymander California's voting maps to counter GOP gerrymandering in Texas.
Yes, she's 85, but she's no Joe. However, she is also not a spring chicken. So the national debate over whether Democrats need not only fresh but also younger candidates has officially opened in the Bay City, although Wiener remains both practical and polite enough not to put it that way.
He'll leave it up to journalists, who have been hounding Pelosi for months to announce whether she would seek another term. She refused to give a direct answer to this question. Instead, her team is focused on the upcoming Proposition 50 election and said any announcement about its future will have to wait until the ballots are counted.
To be fair to Pelosi, she has gone all out on both the fundraising and redistricting campaign, and its passage is important to ensure Democrats have at least a chance to regain any power in the midterm elections.
If Proposition 50 fails, there will be no miracle path, except perhaps an unexpected blue wave through which Democrats can retake the House. So November 4 is not an arbitrary date. It will determine whether there is any possibility of stopping Trump's power grab and preserving democracy. Personally, I don't blame Pelosi for getting into this fight.
To be fair to Wiener, his decision to announce it now was probably driven more by money and political momentum than by Pelosi's age.
That's because Pelosi already has a challenger in super-rich progressive Saikat Chakrabarti, a startup millionaire who was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's campaign manager during her first upset victory for Congress in 2018. Chakrabarti has long been an antagonist of Pelosi and recently announced his candidacy, positioning himself as a disruptor.
In 2019, before the House of Representatives impeached Trump for his questionable actions regarding Ukraine, Chakrabarti tweeted“Pelosi argues that we can't focus on impeachment because it's a distraction from kitchen table issues. But I challenge you to find voters who can name one thing House Democrats have done at their kitchen table this year. What is this legislative mastermind doing?”
Chakrabarti, born the year before Pelosi was first elected to Congress in 1987, self-funded his campaign with $700,000 and has the financial ability to spend much more. Wiener has raised just over $1 million in his shadow campaign, but it's not enough. The primary is in June and it will be expensive.
Even though we didn't make it to Halloween, walk through the aisles of any large store I can tell you that Christmas is approaching, a season when fundraising becomes increasingly difficult, putting pressure on Wiener to raise the money quickly before the winter freeze sets in.
Add to this pressure the fact that Chakrabarti has political skills and growing popularity. He was the technical architect behind the successful recruitment of volunteers for both AOC and Bernie Sanders.
An internal poll released a few months ago (and any internal poll should be taken with a grain of salt) showed Chakrabarti winning 34% of voters to Pelosi's 47%. His numbers grew as voters learned more about him—some even compared him to New York socialist wunderkind Zohran Mamdani, who is currently running for mayor against Andrew Cuomo.
The problem is that Wiener is not Cuomo. He is a progressive man himself and has a solid track record of getting things done, often progressive ones.
I've watched him push ambitious agendas through the Legislature for years, including bills that I would have bet against him on.
Most recently, he wrote about the state's ban on police officers, including ICE, wearing masks. Although the feds have said they will ignore the new law Newsom recently signed, and it will almost certainly end up in court, it is a worthy signal for the secret police in America.
Wiener also this year passed a controversial housing bill that would increase population density around transit hubs and sponsored legislation to regulate artificial intelligence.
In past years, he has been successful in getting insurance companies to cover mental health costs. just like they relate to physical health; pushed large companies reveal their impact on climate; and was one of the main supporters YIMBY Policy which will facilitate the construction of housing.
He has also passed numerous laws protecting immigrant and LGBTQ+ rights, making him a favorite target of the far right. For years he received regular death threats, including one from an anti-vaxxer who was convicted of seven counts in 2022 after threatening Wiener and finding a weapon in his possession. Wiener doesn't have Pelosi's charisma, but he has the recipe for getting the job done and combating the vicious plague of modern politics.
Unlike Chakrabarti, Wiener has been part of the insular San Francisco community for decades and has his own support base, although he is considered a moderate to Chakrabarti's progressiveness. This is where San Francisco gets wonderfully weird. In almost any other place, Wiener would have been completely abandoned. But some of his constituents believe he is too supportive of his housing policies and criticize his past policies to expand care for the mentally ill.
However, a recent poll conducted by EMC Research but not publicly released found that 61% of likely primary voters have a favorable view of Wiener. That's well above the 21% who said the same about Chakrabarti, or even the 21% who liked Pelosi's daughter, Christina Pelosi, who has also been mentioned as a possible successor.
This is all to say that Wiener is in a now-or-never moment. He has popularity, but he needs momentum and money. The Democratic Party is in disarray, and the old rules have disappeared even in San Francisco.
So waiting for Pelosi became something like waiting for godota self-imposed limbo that would lead to disappointment rather than victory.
