When former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that she would retire after nearly four decades in Congress, one name immediately seemed to have the inside track to replace her: California state Sen. Scott Wiener.
That assumption is now looking far less certain.
Pelosi and the political network she spent years building in San Francisco have reportedly lined up behind Supervisor Connie Chan instead, turning what might have been a predictable succession fight into a much more personal and competitive race.
According to a Monday Politico report, Pelosi and her allies have spent weeks working behind the scenes to weaken Wiener’s campaign. That effort burst into public view after a dispute over an AI chatbot created by Wiener’s campaign. Pelosi condemned the chatbot as sexist, accusing the campaign of using artificial intelligence to put words into Chan’s mouth and mock her.
Wiener entered the race last year, before Pelosi publicly confirmed that she would not seek another term. The longtime progressive state senator had widely been viewed as the favorite to inherit the heavily Democratic San Francisco-based 11th Congressional District.
He still has an advantage on paper.
Under California’s top-two primary system, the two candidates who receive the most votes advance to the general election regardless of party. Wiener finished first in the June primary with 40.7 percent of the vote, while Chan received 29.7 percent. The two will face each other in November.
Polling remains limited, but the available numbers have generally favored Wiener. Even so, he has faced growing pressure from parts of San Francisco’s left, particularly over his refusal to describe Israel’s war against Hamas as a “genocide.”
The tensions with Pelosi, however, go beyond foreign policy.
Wiener has long been associated with the “YIMBY” movement, which supports increasing housing construction and loosening zoning restrictions as a way to address high housing costs. Pelosi has longstanding relationships with organized labor, including building-trades unions. Some labor figures have been wary of Wiener’s relationships with real estate interests and concerned that his housing policies could weaken union leverage or protections.
Wiener has also clashed with teachers’ unions, another important part of Pelosi’s political coalition. Chan, by contrast, has taken a more cautious approach to development during her time on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and has maintained stronger relationships with teachers’ unions.
Still, some labor insiders believe policy disagreements only explain part of the hostility.
“Pelosi is the vintage powerbroker here,” one pro-Wiener labor organizer told Politico anonymously. The organizer argued that the fight was less about policy than about Pelosi maintaining influence over San Francisco politics after leaving Congress.
The timing of Wiener’s campaign launch appears to have played a major role as well.
Pelosi reportedly resented the fact that Wiener entered the race before she formally announced her retirement. Wiener had made little secret over the years that he was interested in eventually seeking her seat, but Pelosi allies saw his early move as presumptuous.
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown told Politico that Wiener had said he did not intend to run against Pelosi, only to announce his candidacy shortly afterward.
Pelosi ally Kim Tavaglione, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, suggested the move was especially irritating because Pelosi wanted the focus of her final term to remain on opposing Donald Trump and protecting her political legacy.
The simmering feud became much more visible last week when Pelosi and several other prominent Democrats criticized Wiener’s campaign over the AI chatbot.
The bot was designed to highlight what Wiener’s campaign described as Chan’s record of opposing housing development and affordability measures on the Board of Supervisors. Pelosi argued that the tactic crossed a line.
“Women have spent generations fighting to have our own voices heard in the halls of power,” Pelosi wrote in a letter criticizing the campaign. “We should not have to fight against artificial intelligence putting words in our mouths.”
She went further, calling the use of AI to imitate or fabricate a woman’s voice a misuse of technology that could reinforce sexist stereotypes. Pelosi also argued that attacks on Chan, who is Asian American, could take on a racial dimension.
Members of Chan’s campaign said the chatbot also produced racist and sexist responses involving her Asian heritage. Politico reported that it was unable to reproduce those responses, although Chan’s team provided screenshots that it said showed the offensive material.
Wiener, meanwhile, has pushed back by portraying Pelosi’s involvement as an attempt to control the race from behind the scenes.
“Nancy has basically taken over Connie’s campaign,” he told Politico. Wiener contrasted that with what he described as his own independent campaign backed by grassroots supporters.
The result is a race that now looks like much more than a simple contest over who will represent one of the most Democratic districts in the country. It has become a fight over Pelosi’s political legacy, the future direction of San Francisco’s Democratic establishment, and whether the former speaker will still be able to shape local politics after leaving office.