Sunday marked the deadline for San Francisco voters weighing two candidates who both claim the mantle of “progressive” — but who represent starkly different visions for how the city should grow, especially when it comes to housing.
Across the country, unapologetically left-leaning candidates are having a moment. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan Senate hopeful Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, and Randy Villegas in California’s 22nd Congressional District have all ridden a wave of populist enthusiasm to victory or contention. But in the race to succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Congress, San Francisco voters are split between two Democrats who both describe themselves in progressive terms — and whose disagreement over housing policy may prove more consequential than any national trend.
San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, who has Pelosi’s backing, portrays herself as a champion of working families who won’t be swayed by corporate political money or the tech industry that has thrown its support behind her rival, state Sen. Scott Wiener. Chan has called Wiener, a longtime LGBTQ rights advocate who made national headlines for legislation aimed at exposing the identities of ICE agents, a “corporate Democrat funded by billionaires.”
But Chan’s record — marked by opposition to development projects and rezoning efforts in her own district — could turn off some progressive voters, particularly newcomers to city politics. For decades, San Francisco residents have resisted new construction, often prioritizing neighborhood preservation over adding housing supply.
That resistance has helped fuel the city’s housing crisis. Rents have climbed to record highs as the Bay Area’s AI-driven tech boom pours money into the local economy; one recent industry report found the average one-bedroom apartment now rents for more than $4,000 a month.
“Progressivism in San Francisco has become tightly wound up with an identity that refuses to accept a lot of things,” said Jane Natoli, a housing advocate who lives in Chan’s district and supports Wiener. “For some reason, especially on housing, San Francisco progressives have mostly just said no.”
In June’s primary, voters favored both Wiener and Chan over Saikat Chakrabarti, a former aide to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who energized younger voters with rhetoric reminiscent of Mamdani and Sen. Bernie Sanders. The tech entrepreneur agreed with Wiener on the need to build more housing but coupled that stance with a broader anti-establishment, anti-capitalist message.
“I liked him a lot because his approach to YIMBY politics was conciliatory,” said Alex Vanscoy, Chakrabarti’s former field director. Vanscoy now backs Chan, who has pledged to refuse money from corporate political action committees. “Taking lobbyist money is a very serious thing to me,” Chan said.
Both candidates agree that affordability is the top concern for San Franciscans and that the city faces a housing shortage across every income level. Where they diverge sharply is on what role the state and federal governments should play in solving it.
**What’s driving the housing crisis?**
Wiener believes the state must require — not simply encourage — local governments to build more housing, particularly in cities and counties that have long resisted new development. A leading voice in the YIMBY and “abundance” movements, he authored legislation, now law, that cut red tape for certain housing permits, a move that pleased both labor groups and developers. Local officials have told the Legislature that the streamlining law has slashed average permitting timelines from years down to three to six months.
Chan, by contrast, has largely opposed new housing and development proposals in her district, saying her priority is protecting tenants from eviction and shielding small businesses from the disruption of construction. She often points to the “urban renewal” of the Fillmore District from the 1950s through the 1970s, which devastated San Francisco’s Black community, as a cautionary tale she doesn’t want repeated elsewhere. That painful history, in fact, helped give rise to the city’s modern progressive movement.
“I think we’re starting to see the real dividing line,” said Eric Kingsbury, a Wiener supporter and chair of the San Francisco County Central Committee, the local arm of the Democratic Party. “I really expect to see a lot of discomfort, because if you’re pro-housing and you’re a progressive person, you have a candidate in this race, and that’s Scott Wiener.”
Chan, one of the board’s four most progressive supervisors, recently voted against Mayor Daniel Lurie’s residential rezoning plan — a state-mandated overhaul designed to allow taller, denser housing near transit stops and major corridors. She previously led a lawsuit against the state, arguing its housing mandates unfairly targeted San Francisco. Chan said she opposed Lurie’s plan because it lacked sufficient protections against the demolition of rent-controlled housing and the displacement of tenants and small businesses.
“We can still demand accountability, we can still conduct environmental reviews, and at the same time make government more efficient,” Chan said.
“It’s ridiculous when people say I’m against development,” said Norman Yee, a former San Francisco supervisor who supports Chan. “All she wants is to make sure, first, that tenants aren’t displaced, and second, that community concerns are addressed.”
In 2021, Chan helped block a nearly 500-unit mixed-income housing proposal slated for a vacant parking lot just a block from a BART station — a decision that drew a scathing rebuke from the San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial board, which accused the city’s then-eight progressive supervisors of sabotaging “seemingly every serious attempt to address this city’s housing crisis.”
Beyond housing, Chan also fought a plan to add dedicated bus lanes along a corridor that, before the pandemic, carried one of the busiest bus routes in the country, objecting to the loss of parking spaces and warning of harm to small businesses during construction. The city’s transit agency approved the project anyway.
Chan has also pushed back against Sacramento’s growing role in local planning and zoning decisions, arguing that corporate developers and Wall Street real estate interests have persuaded lawmakers like Wiener to let them bypass local review processes. Wiener has dismissed the charge as misleading and “trivial.”
Chan points to her support for a recently opened affordable senior housing project — 98 units built on the site of a former funeral home — as proof she isn’t anti-development. No existing tenants were displaced, she noted, since the building went up on vacant land.
“I always joke that if anyone got displaced from that site, it would be a ghost from the funeral home,” Chan said.
In her campaign launch video, Chan promises to deliver “real affordable housing, not Sacramento’s version that destroys our neighborhoods.”
Wiener countered that the project, which opened last November, was made possible largely because of his own Senate Bill 35 — a landmark law he authored to speed up housing permits — along with roughly $60 million in state funding.
“If what you want to do is make it harder and more expensive to build housing, or even impossible, then that’s not progressive,” Wiener said. “That’s conservative.”
It remains unclear whether San Francisco voters who backed Chakrabarti, who won about 18% of the primary vote in June, will now consolidate behind Chan or Wiener heading into November.
**Other flashpoints**
Housing isn’t the only issue shaping the race.
Wiener, who is Jewish, drew criticism from some progressives after initially declining to use the word “genocide” to describe the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Following public pressure after a tense candidate forum, Wiener reversed course, explaining his shift in a video posted to social media.
The about-face proved awkward and alienated enough members of the Jewish community that Wiener stepped down as chair of the Legislature’s Jewish caucus. Others dismissed the change as symbolic and overdue. Months later, pro-Palestinian demonstrators confronted him so aggressively during the city’s Trans March that he was forced to leave the event.
Wiener’s wavering on the word “genocide” has bred distrust among younger voters, said Kaizen Betts-LaCroix, another former Chakrabarti staffer now supporting Chan. Betts-LaCroix said Chan’s unequivocal opposition to U.S. military aid for Israel, along with her refusal to accept corporate PAC money, are the main reasons behind the endorsement.
Wiener’s campaign has also faced backlash over aggressive attack tactics, including repeating a misleading claim that Chakrabarti actually lived in Maryland, and a now-deleted AI parody chatbot that impersonated Chan and mocked her record of blocking housing and other development projects.
Pelosi, who has used her considerable influence to boost Chan’s candidacy, quickly condemned the chatbot and rallied prominent Democrats — including seven congresswomen and former Mayor Willie Brown — to join her in denouncing it.
“Women have spent generations fighting to have our voices heard in the halls of power,” Pelosi wrote on social media. “We shouldn’t have to now fight AI for putting words in our mouths.”
Within days, Wiener’s campaign took down the site, pulled billboards promoting it, and apologized for offending voters, acknowledging that the stunt had “missed the mark.”
Original source: CalMatters
