By Alyce McFadden, Staff Writer Updated May 8, 2026 (SFChronicle.com)
Gift Article
House candidate Saikat Chakrabarti rallies supporters to “Change the Party” at a nightclub in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood Thursday night. Lizzy Montana Myers/For the S.F. Chronicle
Hundreds of progressive Bay Area voters crammed into a San Francisco nightclub Thursday for a campaign rally held by congressional candidate Saikat Chakrabarti that featured the hyper-popular, and controversial, political commentator Hasan Piker.
The mostly young crowd was packed shoulder to shoulder, seemingly energized about the rally’s “Change the Party” theme, a key promise of Chakrabarti’s campaign to replace Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi. The former tech engineer and centimillionaire, who founded a group dedicated to unseating incumbent moderate Democrats, shared a vision Thursday for a more progressive agenda in Washington.
“San Francisco, the political revolution is here,” Chakrabarti said when he took to the stage a little after 8:30 p.m.
The promise has rankled some Democrats in San Francisco and beyond. But it also resonated deeply with many attendees, some of whom traveled from the East Bay and beyond to hear Piker and Chakrabarti speak.
T Bowman, a canvasser and San Francisco voter, said she sees Chakrabarti as the kind of “up front, honest” candidate who could effect change in Washington.
“I feel like the Democratic Party isn’t standing up for us in the right ways,” Bowman said, citing foreign policy issues and corporate spending on elections.
The slate of Democrats running against Chakrabarti include state Sen. Scott Wiener, the race’s front-runner, Supervisor Connie Chan, and Marie Hurabiell, a former Presidio Trust board member.
Chakrabarti has embraced the role of a Democratic dissident willing to buck party leadership. An alumnus of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, Chakrabarti has criticized the party’s approach to core issues from President Donald Trump to Israel to affordability.
“We need a new generation of leaders that will deliver on a fundamentally better life for all,” Chakrabarti said during his speech. “To do that we have to completely change the leadership of the Democratic Party.”
After Sanders lost his bid in 2016, Chakrabarti helped found the Justice Democrats, a political action committee dedicated to helping progressive campaigns unseat incumbent Democrats in primary races across the country. The group recruited Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to challenge long-time Rep. Joe Crowley in New York City. After her win, Chakrabarti became her chief of staff at the Capitol, though Ocasio-Cortez has declined to endorse him in this race.
Chakrabarti was joined onstage Thursday by three progressive candidates challenging incumbent Democrats in primary races across the country who spoke about their desire to reshape the party from within. The stakes could not be higher, Chakrabarti said in an interview before the rally.
“If we just keep going the direction we’re going, we are sleepwalking into the destruction of this party,” Chakrabarti said. “So I’d rather change and win than just go the direction that we are headed right now.”
He dismissed the notion that his pugnacious approach could hamper his effectiveness in Washington, should he advance in the June primary and go on to win election in November. He said he would rely not on support from his fellow Democrats to pass legislation but leverage his popularity with supporters on the grassroots level, much as Ocasio-Cortez used her large following to build support for progressive policies such as the Green New Deal.
Chakrabarti supporters in attendance Thursday said they hope that approach could give them a voice in a party they say has failed to stand up for their values.
“I feel like I’ve been waiting 40 years for this guy,” said Regina Islas of San Francisco, a campaign volunteer and longtime Democrat. “One of the things I like is he’s a fighter. He’s a feisty guy, and we need that spirit.”
That combativeness, and Chakrabarti’s decision to court Piker’s support, could alienate some voters. Piker has emerged as a divisive figure in the party and a favorite target for moderate Democrats and Republicans for controversial comments on a slew of issues, including Israel, 9/11 and Asian Americans.
On Wednesday, San Francisco Supervisor Matt Dorsey said he would submit a resolution to the city’s Democratic Party central committee decrying Piker and urging him and his supporters to “pursue the formation of their own party and to get out of ours.”
Chakrabarti seemed to lean into Dorsey’s censure in a social media video Thursday, labeling him as part of the party’s “old guard.”
“They’re attacking us because we want Democrats to stop taking corporate money. They’re attacking us because we want genocide in Gaza to end,” he said.
Piker echoed the message onstage at the rally, suggesting that Dorsey and other critics were out of touch with what voters want.
“I see a lot of people in this room who want to change the party today,” Piker said. “We have to fight to make sure we elect responsive politicians who serve our interests.”
In the week leading up to the rally, flyers in Chinese and English had popped up on telephone poles and lampposts around the city urging people to come out to protest Piker’s appearance. But as the event got underway Thursday, there was no evidence that such a protest had materialized.
“There’s a lesson there, in that story,” Piker said. Chakrabarti’s opponents might have the support of politically powerful outside groups, he added, “but we have the people.”
May 7, 2026 | Updated May 8, 2026 9:26 a.m.
City Hall reporter
Alyce McFadden is a City Hall reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle covering the Board of Supervisors. McFadden previously worked at the New York Times, where she was a news assistant and reporting fellow. She covered Andrew Cuomo’s history of sexual harassment, the trial of the man accused of attacking Salman Rushdie, the Los Angeles wildfires and the reaction to the killing of Charlie Kirk. McFadden has also written for Law360, OpenSecrets and the Maine Beacon. She’s a graduate of Bowdoin College, where she studied government and legal studies and was editor in chief of the student paper.
