Hardly anyone in local politics was surprised to hear that Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, one of the city’s most popular and powerful politicians, has endorsed Sup. Connie Chan for Congress. Pelosi appeared at a Chan fundraiser in DC. She allowed Chan to use her photo in campaign ads. And we all knew she would never support Saikat Chakrabarti and wasn’t at all pleased with Scott Wiener.
The only interesting questions: Why this timing—and what will be the impact on the primary, which is only two weeks away?
If Pelosi had made this endorsement six months ago, it might have helped Chan raise money; nobody in the entire Democratic Party raises money like Nancy Pelosi. It also might have allowed Chakrabarti’s folks to portray Chan as another party insider; he is running openly and directly against the Pelosi wing of the party, which has been open to supporting conservatives and centrists to create a Democratic majority.
But Chan is by no means the party insider: In San Francisco, the mainstream of the party, including the Democratic County Central Committee, has endorsed Wiener. So has the state Democratic Party.
“Connie had to earn this,” one longtime political observer close to the Chan campaign, who asked not to be named, told me. “She was not the anointed candidate.”
Also: The Chan campaign had no control over the timing. Pelosi waited until she was ready, as she does.
But now this is big news; every local outlet has featured it on the digital front page. It’s all over social media. It suggests that if Chan makes it to the November general election, she will be able to raise enough money to make her competitive to Wiener.
In other words: Positive jolt to the campaign.
The election’s in two weeks. Ballots have been in mailboxes since early May.
But at this point, most people still haven’t voted. The Department of Elections reports that only about five percent of the ballots have been returned. That’s probably because most voters haven’t figured out who to support for governor in a race that seems to be changing every day.
A month ago, most of the polls (and I don’t trust most of them) showed Wiener well ahead and Chakrabarti in second. But Wiener’s real estate and Big Tech allies have launched a relentless, expensive direct-mail attack on Chakrabarti, figuring they would rather run against Chan, who doesn’t have $180 million of her own money to spend, in November.
That seems to have brought Chakrabarti’s numbers down, at least a bit.
Now, Wiener’s got a dilemma: He can’t attack Chan very easily now that she has Pelosi’s support, and the speaker emerita has just made her far more formidable as a November opponent.
Some left-leaning voters, particularly people who haven’t been engaged in local politics for very long, may see this as another sign that Chan is not radical enough to shake up Washington. Most of them were voting for Chakrabarti anyway.
Those who have been around longer know that Chan already has the backing of almost every labor union and almost every progressive local organization in the city.
So who does the Pelosi endorsement impact? With more than ten percent undecided in the race, will some more mainstream Democrats and independents see Chan as a more credible candidate?
Wiener is campaigning as a candidate who can “get things done” in a deeply divided Congress. But nobody has more of a record of “getting things done” including the Affordable Care Act, in a divided Congress than Pelosi. I have not always (or even often) been a Pelosi fan, but when it comes to “effectiveness” (not always on things I supported) it’s hard to criticize her.
If she says Chan is the best qualified, that undermines part of Wiener’s argument.
So far, Chakrabarti has avoided attacking Chan (although that’s not true for some of his supporters) and Chan has avoided attacking Chakrabarti (although again that’s not true of some of her supporters). The most visible attacks on Chakrabarti have come from Wiener’s allies, who have mostly left Chan alone.
Will that change now, with the race for second close?
Two weeks to go. And this will lead the news cycle for the first of them.
Full disclosure: My daughter works on the Chan for Congress campaign.
