- By Patrick Hoge | Examiner staff writer
- Jun 15, 2026 (SFExaminer.com)
In a potential boon to San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan’s congressional campaign, centimillionaire Saikat Chakrabarti has endorsed her candidacy and is converting his campaign committee to support her against state Sen. Scott Wiener in the race to succeed U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a Chakrabarti spokesperson said.
Chakrabarti — who finished behind Chan in the June 2 primary election despite having loaned or contributed nearly $10 million of his own money to his campaign — changed the name of his election campaign committee to the SF Solidarity PAC, an independent-expenditure committee, according to federal filings.
The former candidate had made offers to about 220 campaign employees who could work on Chan’s behalf as part of the independent effort, said spokesperson Nate Albee.
“What it comes down to for Saikat is about changing the direction of the Democratic Party,” Albee said. “As it currently stands, the party has been co-opted by corporations.”
Chan has committed to not taking money from corporate political-action committees, among other entities.
Chan campaign spokesperson Julie Edwards provided a statement in which Chan said she welcomed Chakrabarti’s endorsement.
“Together, we can stand up to corporate power and bring the voices of working families to Washington,” said Chan, who was first elected supervisor in 2020.
With almost all of the ballots from the election counted Monday, Wiener — a former San Francisco supervisor and a state legislator of nearly 10 years — won first place, with 95,720 votes, or 40.73%. Pelosi’s 11th Congressional District covers all but a southern chunk of The City.
Chan — who got Pelosi’s coveted endorsement on May 18, late in the primary race — came in second place with 69,823 votes, or 29.71%. Chakrabarti came in third with 41,990 votes, or 17.87%.
The results showed Wiener was dominant in most of The City, but Chan was particularly strong in the heavily Asian American Richmond and Sunset districts, according to data on the website Election Map.
Although Chakrabarti leveled far more broadsides against Wiener ahead of the primary election, Wiener campaign spokesperson Joe Arellano provided a statement Monday pointing out that Chakrabarti had criticized Chan on the stump.
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“Now he’s endorsing her?” Arellano said. “This is the cynical politics that voters hate.”
“Connie Chan has built a career on blocking housing and affordability for young people — the same voters Saikat claimed to speak for,” Arellano said. “With this move, it’s clear that Saikat never cared about what’s best for San Francisco. He was only in the race to stroke his massive ego.”
Both Chan and Wiener have been highlighting endorsements, with Wiener recently issuing a press release touting the fact that six of The City’s 11 supervisors, among others, have backed him.
Charkrabarti is a progressive activist who made a fortune as an early software engineer at the payments company Stripe. He loaned or contributed at least $9.9 million of the $10.3 million his campaign raised in the leadup to the election.
He paid some canvassers as much as $45 per hour, and his campaign said it built “one of the largest field operations in recent San Francisco history,” knocking on nearly a half-million doors as part of “a grassroots movement.”
Chan bested Chakrabarti in the primary despite declaring her candidacy relatively late, on Nov. 20, and had raised about $700,000 by the time of the election. Wiener raised about $4 million.
Chan’s campaign posted a video Sunday evening on social media featuring Chakrabarti bequeathing his endorsement while the two sat at a table at Joe’s Ice Cream in the Richmond district.
A co-founder of economic-policy think tank New Consensus, Chakrabarti said he and Chan agreed on “the most important issue right now, which is that if we actually want to create a society that works for working people, we have to break the stranglehold of corporate money in Washington.”
Chan responded, “Not only we have to break that stronghold, the corporate stronghold, but we also need to make sure we have progressive taxation, that billionaires and their corporations pay their fair share.”
Chakrabarti praised Chan for supporting “a wealth tax on the ultra rich, and you’ve been really clear that you’re going to stop sending endless bombs abroad, spending billions on wars and on genocides, and instead invest that back home here in housing, health care, and education.”
“We look forward to working together to make sure we stop [President] Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion on war and making sure that money we bring that back and to invest in health care and public education,” Chan said.
