Nancy Pelosi stopped short of a formal endorsement but left little doubt about where she stands in the crowded fight to succeed her in Congress. Speaking at an Asian Pacific Islander Council event in Hayes Valley on Thursday night, the Speaker Emerita called San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan a "great member of Congress" in waiting and said electing the city's first Asian American representative would be "very exciting."
The remarks, reported by The Standard's Power Play newsletter, mark Pelosi's most pointed public comments yet in a primary that has so far been dominated by State Sen. Scott Wiener and former tech engineer Saikat Chakrabarti, two candidates who have grabbed headlines with online clashes and heavy campaign spending.
Pelosi told reporters she attended Chan's Washington, D.C., fundraiser, which drew labor groups, Asian American lawmakers, and women's advocates. Her assessment of that event was unambiguous.
"She really did very well there."
That is not the language of a neutral observer. And for a figure who has spent decades mastering the art of strategic ambiguity, the signal was loud enough for every operative in the Bay Area to hear.
The San Francisco congressional primary has turned into a polling war. In mid-April, Mission Local revealed results from a poll commissioned by Chakrabarti's own campaign showing him at 28 percent among likely voters, with Chan trailing at 13 percent. But the picture shifted quickly. Politico revealed a Chan internal poll on Thursday, and the Chronicle dropped its own survey on Friday.
A late-April voter survey shared with Power Play by a Wiener-aligned PAC painted a tighter race on the progressive side: Chakrabarti at 23 percent, Chan at 17 percent. That same survey found 10 percent of likely voters now held a negative perception of Chakrabarti. Wiener, meanwhile, led both progressive candidates by double digits across the available polling.
Sam Lauter, a principal at public affairs firm BMWL, told Power Play the prior week that "anyone counting out Connie is making a mistake." Pelosi's near-endorsement gives that warning real teeth.
Pelosi has long understood that her influence within Democratic politics carries weight well beyond her former district. Her willingness to single out Chan, while technically maintaining she has "not made a formal endorsement decision", follows a familiar playbook. She told Power Play she had initially planned to "just wait, watch, and see how the public reacted to the candidates for this seat." Evidently, she has seen enough.
Pelosi's careful phrasing deserves scrutiny. She praised Chan's fundraising strength, her demographic appeal, and her fitness for office, all while insisting she had not formally committed. In Washington, that kind of wink-and-nod carries the same force as a full-page ad.
The maneuver lets Pelosi shape the race without bearing the risk of backing a loser. If Chan surges, Pelosi was there first. If Chan falters, Pelosi never technically endorsed. It is the kind of calculated positioning that has defined her career, and that her critics have long found exasperating.
Pelosi's record of selective public commentary is well documented. She has repeatedly weighed in on major political conflicts when the timing served her strategic interests, only to retreat behind procedural language when pressed for specifics.
The same Standard newsletter that captured Pelosi's remarks also spotlighted a different kind of San Francisco dysfunction, one that taxpayers should find far less charming than a congressional horse race.
Ralph Remington, director of the city's Arts Commission, announced at a February 2 commission meeting that he would step down at the end of June. But employees told Power Play that Remington has been largely absent from the office in the months since, even as he continued drawing a public salary.
Jen Atwood, a program officer for the commission, submitted a whistleblower complaint on Monday and called Remington out during a public meeting. Her account was blunt:
"I have not seen Director Remington in the office for the past two months, outside of the hour before commission meetings, despite the mayor's four-day-a-week in-office mandate for city employees."
Atwood went further, asking where the director had been "other than writing and publishing his new book while collecting a city salary." She told Power Play she had been informed she would be laid off, a bitter irony given that Remington himself sent an April 9 email to commission staff warning that layoffs were imminent due to the city's budget deficit.
An anonymous employee described the situation in terms that should alarm anyone who cares about honest government: "We've been told he still technically holds 'decision-making authority' for the agency, but he's not performing any of his duties, they've all been delegated to his deputies."
Remington's total compensation and benefits in 2024 reached $315,000, according to Transparent California. He did not respond to requests for comment. An automated reply from his email account read: "Thank you for your message. I am out of the office, returning on Wednesday, May 13." He reportedly plans to move to Panama after leaving the position.
This was not Remington's first brush with internal complaints. David Mack, who served as managing director of the African American Art and Culture Complex, submitted a complaint in February 2025 alleging Remington berated him in a meeting and threatened to cut off funding for the AAACC.
The pattern is familiar in San Francisco: a senior city official collects a six-figure salary, faces misconduct allegations, announces a departure, and then essentially stops showing up, while rank-and-file employees face layoffs. It is the kind of arrangement that invites hard questions about accountability at every level of the city's political class.
Elsewhere in San Francisco's political landscape, Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan prepared to launch the official voter guide and "Civic Impact Awards" for his political group, Garry's List, on Monday. Tan announced the group back in February, saying the awards would "elevate the people and tools actually helping voters make sense of what's happening."
The guide plans to aggregate endorsements from groups including California YIMBY, Abundance Network, SPUR, and the Bay Area Council. But as of Friday, Garry's List had barely broken 1,000 followers on X, raising questions about whether the project can generate the grassroots energy Tan envisions, or whether it will remain a niche effort within the city's tech-adjacent political circles.
Governor Gavin Newsom and Mayor Daniel Lurie announced a new program on Friday to send 400 diapers home with every newborn family in San Francisco. The event produced the kind of exchange that reminds voters why politicians sometimes seem to inhabit a different planet.
Asked about his own diaper-changing history, a subject apparently addressed in his memoir, Newsom offered a candid answer: "Not as many as I could have." He then added that his wife, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, had edited that claim out of his draft. "My wife, that was her one edit. That was not true," Newsom said. The Newsoms have four children.
Lurie, for his part, was less equivocal. "I changed a lot of diapers," the mayor said. "I was right there front and center." Whether that record of domestic service translates into political capital remains to be seen.
Pelosi's track record of public statements that serve her broader strategic goals suggests her comments about Chan were anything but casual. In a city where progressive factions compete for the same voters, a nod from the most powerful Democrat San Francisco has ever produced can reshape a primary overnight.
The San Francisco congressional primary is, in miniature, a window into the contradictions of one-party governance. Every major candidate is a Democrat. The debate is not over whether progressive policies have served the city well, it is over which flavor of progressivism deserves a promotion to Washington. Voters will choose between a state senator who polls ahead by double digits, a former tech engineer backed by activist energy, and a supervisor who now carries the implicit blessing of the most powerful woman in modern Democratic politics.
Meanwhile, a city agency director draws a $315,000 salary while allegedly not showing up to work. Employees face layoffs. And the governor and mayor hold a press conference about diapers.
San Francisco's problems are not caused by a shortage of Democratic officeholders. They are caused by a political culture that rewards loyalty, tolerates absenteeism, and treats public money as a patronage fund. Pelosi's careful maneuvering in this race will not change that. It is, in fact, a perfect expression of it.
