Connie Chan meets Pelosi in DC, stokes House seat speculation

Connie Chan’s meeting with Nancy Pelosi in Washington, D.C., has become the clearest early signal that San Francisco’s race for one of its most powerful political prizes is starting to take shape. Pelosi’s seat in California’s 11th Congressional District is open for the first time in decades after she announced in November 2025 that she would not seek reelection, setting up a contest that will decide who speaks for all of San Francisco in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The district, now entirely inside San Francisco after redistricting, has about 729,775 residents and a strong Democratic tilt, with a partisan voting index of D+21. The primary is June 2, 2026, and the general election is November 3, 2026, giving potential candidates little time to lock down support across neighborhoods from the west side to Chinatown and the southern waterfront.

Chan, who represents District 1 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, was first elected in November 2020 and reelected in November 2024. She now chairs the board’s Budget Committee, a post that keeps her tied to the city’s hardest-fought spending debates and gives her a record she could take to voters as she weighs a congressional bid. Her appearance alongside Pelosi also underscores the geographic and ideological lane Chan is trying to occupy: a West Side progressive with strong ties to San Francisco’s labor and civic establishment, and one who could appeal to voters looking for a successor rooted in the city’s neighborhoods rather than Sacramento.

Pelosi has been publicly elevating Chan as a possible successor, though she has not endorsed anyone. That matters in a city where the former speaker’s name still carries enormous weight, especially with Democratic primary voters who will decide the race. Political observers say Pelosi’s blessing could help define not only the contest’s winner but also the issues that dominate San Francisco’s voice in Washington, from labor and city services to housing, transportation and the economic future of a city still trying to balance national ambitions with local strain.

Chan is not entering an empty field. State Sen. Scott Wiener and former congressional aide Saikat Chakrabarti are already running, and the race is shaping up as a major San Francisco fight over leadership and alliances. Mission Local reported that Chan is the only major Chinese American candidate and that the district has about 73,000 Chinese American voters, roughly 16 percent of the electorate, a bloc that could matter in a city where Chinatown, North Beach and the Sunset have long shaped political outcomes.

Chan has also assembled support from labor and prominent local figures, including nurses and firefighters unions, the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, AFT 2121, Willie Brown, Art Agnos, Quentin Kopp, Aaron Peskin and the Working Families Party. That coalition suggests she is building a base that reaches beyond one neighborhood and toward the broader governing network that has long helped determine San Francisco’s place in national politics.