Progressives across the country are undeniably having a moment.
Voters are rallying behind populist, insurgent-left candidates like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan senate hopeful Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and Randy Villegas in California’s 22nd Congressional District.
But in the race to succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as San Francisco’s representative in Congress, the city’s voters are split between two Democratic candidates who both claim the title of “progressive.”
The major fault line? Housing and urban development.
San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, who has Pelosi’s endorsement, is pitching herself as a fighter for working families who’s immune to the influence of corporate PACs and the deep-pocketed tech industry that supports her opponent, state Sen. Scott Wiener. She has characterized Wiener, a fierce advocate for LGBTQ rights who made national headlines for a bill to unmask ICE agents, as a “corporate Democrat bankrolled by billionaires.”
But Chan’s own legacy of thwarting housing development projects and zoning changes in her district could turn off some progressive voters, especially those new to city politics. San Francisco voters have for decades tended to oppose new building projects, favoring neighborhood preservation over additional housing.
That attitude largely contributed to the housing crisis the city now faces. Rent costs have hit a historic high as Bay Area tech workers hit the AI windfall — one recent industry report found the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment has surpassed $4,000.
“Progressivism in San Francisco has really become very tied to this identity where it doesn’t say ‘yes’ to a lot of stuff,” said Jane Natoli, a housing advocate who lives in Chan’s supervisorial district and supports Wiener.
“For whatever reason, especially on issues such as housing, San Francisco progressives have largely said ‘no.’”
In the June primary, voters chose Wiener and Chan over former Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez staffer Saikat Chakrabarti, who excited younger voters with his messages echoing those of Mamdani and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. The tech millionaire aligned with Wiener on the need to turbocharge new housing construction, yet embraced the anti-establishment, anti-corporate attitude.
“I really liked him so much because it was like a very ‘Yes, and’ approach to YIMBYism,” said Alex Vanscoy, Chakrabarti’s former field director. Now he backs Chan, who has promised not to take any corporate PAC money, saying “taking money from lobbyists is a huge issue to me.”
Wiener and Chan concur that affordability is the top issue for San Franciscans and agree the city suffers a shortage of housing across all income levels. But they differ profoundly on the role of state and federal governments in fixing the issue.
What’s the root of the housing crisis?
Wiener believes the state should ensure that local governments actually build new housing, rather than just promise to do so, especially cities and counties that have long resisted new construction. As a standard-bearer for the abundance and Yes in my Backyard movements, he authored legislation, eventually signed into law, that eliminated regulatory hurdles for certain building permits, pleasing both labor and developers. City officials have told the Legislature that the “streamlining” policy has shortened the average permit wait times from years to three to six months.
Chan has largely opposed new housing and development projects, saying she’s prioritizing tenants who would be displaced and small businesses that could lose business during construction. She has said that the “urban renewal” of the city’s Fillmore district from the 1950s through 1970s had detrimental effects on San Francisco’s Black community and doesn’t want the same to happen in other neighborhoods. The backlash to that urban renewal gave rise to the modern San Francisco progressive.
“I think we’re starting to see the real divide show up,” said Eric Kingsbury, a Wiener supporter and member of the San Francisco County Central Committee, the local Democratic arm. “I would really expect to see a lot of discomfort, because if you are pro-housing and you’re an otherwise progressive person, you have a candidate in this race, and it’s Scott Wiener.”
Chan, who is one of the four most left-leaning members on the San Francisco board, recently voted against moderate Mayor Daniel Lurie’s family zoning plan — a state-mandated revamp that seeks to increase density and building heights near public transit stations and on major thoroughfares. Chan previously led an effort to sue the state on the grounds that its housing requirements unfairly targeted San Francisco. She said she opposed Lurie’s plan because it didn’t include enough safeguards to prevent demolition of rent-controlled units and displacement of tenants and small businesses.
“I think for people to say that she’s anti-development is kind of ridiculous,” said Norman Yee, a former San Francisco supervisor who supports Chan. “All she wants is to make sure that number one, tenants don’t get displaced, and two, to make sure that community concerns are addressed.”
In 2021, Chan helped kill a proposal for a nearly 500-unit mixed-income development proposed for an empty parking lot a block from a BART station, prompting The San Francisco Chronicle editorial board to excoriate the then-eight progressive supervisors for sabotaging “seemingly all earnest attempts to deal with this city’s housing crisis.”
Outside of housing, Chan also railed against a plan to build an express lane for a bus route that was one of the busiest in the country prior to the pandemic, protesting the loss of parking spaces and arguing that small businesses would suffer during the construction. The city’s transit agency approved it anyway.
Chan has objected to Sacramento involvement in local planning and zoning. She argues that corporate developers and the Wall Street real estate industry have convinced lawmakers like Wiener to allow them to bypass local review and zoning regulations — an attack Wiener described as “tired” and untrue.
“We can still have accountability, we can still have environmental review and improve government efficiency at the same time,” Chan said.
Chan points to her support of a recent 98-unit affordable housing development for seniors, which she features in her campaign launch video. Chan highlighted that no existing tenants had to be displaced since it was built on the site of an abandoned funeral home.
“I always make this joke that if anybody got evicted from the site, it was a ghost from the funeral home,” Chan said.
In the video, Chan touts that she would “build real affordable housing, not the Sacramento version that destroys our neighborhoods.”
Wiener said the building, which opened last November, was made possible largely because of his Senate Bill 35, a landmark law Wiener introduced to fast-track building permits, along with close to $60 million in state funding.
“If you’re trying to make it harder and more expensive to build housing, or even impossible to build, then that’s not progressive,” Wiener said. “That’s conservative.”
It’s still unclear whether San Franciscans who supported Chakrabarti, who won about 18% of primary voters in June, will coalesce behind Chan or Wiener in November.
Other divisive issues
Housing isn’t the only issue in the race.
Wiener, who is Jewish, alienated some progressives by resisting using the word “genocide” to describe the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. After public pressure mounted following a tense candidate forum, Wiener reversed himself and explained his decision in a video on social media.
The reversal landed awkwardly at best and offended enough members of the Jewish community that he was forced to step down as chair of the Legislative Jewish caucus. Others deemed his change of heart performative and “too little, too late.” Months later, pro-Palestine hecklers berated and harassed him so aggressively at the city’s trans march that he left the event.
Wiener’s back-and-forth on the use of “genocide” has created trust issues for a lot of younger voters, said Kaizen Betts-LaCroix, another former Chakrabarti staffer who supports Chan. Betts-LaCroix said Chan’s unequivocal opposition to military aid to Israel and her rejection of corporate PAC money are main reasons they back her.
The senator and his campaign have also faced criticism for negative and mean-spirited attacks, including repeating the misleading claim that Chakrabarti lived in Maryland and a now-defunct parody AI chatbot that mimicked Chan and cheekily criticized her obstructive record on housing and other issues.
Pelosi, who has wielded her influence to boost Chan’s campaign, immediately denounced the site and rallied several high-profile Democrats, including seven female members of Congress and former Mayor Willie Brown, to join her.
“Women have spent generations fighting to have our own voices heard in the halls of power,” Pelosi declared on social media. “We should not have to now fight against artificial intelligence putting words in our mouths.”
Within days, Wiener’s campaign deactivated the site, took down the billboards promoting it and apologized for offending voters, acknowledging that the site “missed the mark.”
