It was a frenzied three days for congressional candidate Connie Chan.
At Portsmouth Square, she addressed a crowd of more than 200 people and proclaimed herself a daughter of Chinatown. In the Mission, she stood before 100 supporters and vowed to tax billionaires. At the Sunset Recreation Center, she spoke to another 100 attendees, promising to fight for working families.
Chan, the current District 1 supervisor, wore a lot of hats and leaned into different facets of her progressive bona fides during three campaign kickoff events over the weekend. She tested out messaging on her Chinese roots, her immigrant background, and her affinity for taxing the billionaires “all the way.”
“We have fought billionaires and billionaires’ PAC, as candidates but also at the ballot box with different ballot measures that we make sure that we are for the working people in San Francisco,” Chan said at In Chan Kaajal Park.
With the primary vote looming in June, the race to succeed Rep. Nancy Pelosi is off.
A lot happened in just the past week. On Sunday, Chan’s opponent, Sen. Scott Wiener, secured the endorsement of the California Democratic Party.
Chan countered with a steady rollout of endorsements of her own: Unions representing nurses and firefighters, the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, AFT 2121, former mayors Willie Brown and Art Agnos, retired judge Quentin Kopp, former San Francisco Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin, and the Working Families Party.
In the same week, the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club endorsed Chan, while the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club backed Wiener.
Friday’s Chinatown kickoff centered on electing the first Chinese American from Northern California to Congress. Two other major Chinese enclaves, New York City and the Los Angeles area, have already elected Chinese congresspeople.
Rep. Judy Chu, a Chinese American who represents communities including Pasadena, has endorsed Chan.
“Look at our history. We’ve been told we can only stay in Chinatown and we cannot go outside,” said Chan, dressed in red, to a crowd of more than 200 participants at Portsmouth Square.
“But look at who we are today in 2026. We are not only in Chinatown. We are actually in the Richmond. We’re in the Sunset. We’re in Bayview. We’re in the entire Bay Area.”
Chinese votes are central to Chan’s path to victory. California’s 11th congressional district has fewer Chinese voters than San Francisco writ large, but it still includes more than 73,000 of them, accounting for roughly 16 percent of its 470,000 voters.
Supervisor Chyanne Chen, acting as emcee at the Feb. 20 event at Portsmouth Square, joked that she and Chan were “the double Chen” on the board, pronouncing the two last names the same.
Chan urged a community known for low voter turnout to cast ballots in June and November. “Many people want to divide us, saying Chinese voters don’t need representation. They don’t understand our pain,” she said in her mother tongue, Cantonese.
Chan said that though she was raised to be quiet, the strong “tiger mom” in her would come out for this campaign. “Chinese Americans know how to fight!”
“Now I’ll translate it for those white folks,” Chan said, finishing her speech in Cantonese and turning to English: “The Chinese American community, they should know I prioritize them because I’m a daughter of Chinatown.”
Peskin, who was in attendance and represented Chinatown for the better part of 20 years as District 3 supervisor, introduced his former legislative aide as “a daughter of North Beach, a daughter of San Francisco.”
He contrasted her with Wiener, a Harvard Law School graduate, saying Chan would not play the “I went to Harvard, I’m smarter than all of you” game, but would instead “unify people.”
In Chan’s kickoff in the Mission District at In Chan Kaajal Park at 17th and Folsom streets, masked Chinese seniors were replaced by union members chanting “Hard work!”
Chan, who had centered the previous day on her Chinese American identity, broadened her message to immigrants and workers.
“Chinese American immigrants in San Francisco, I think that is the same for Latino immigrants and Filipino immigrants and all the immigrants in San Francisco,” said Chan, outfitted in a black sweatshirt printed with the word “makibaka,” Tagalog for “fight.”
“For the longest time, you don’t get to go out, you don’t get to buy a home, you don’t actually get to be here,” she said. “You don’t get to own a business.”
She repeated her personal story as an immigrant daughter and English learner who came to the United States with a single mother and a younger brother.
“Only in San Francisco and in a sanctuary city, someone like me … gets to run for office and win,” Chan told the roughly 100 attendees. Now, she said, she wants to continue that story in Washington, D.C.
Chan was joined by drag artist Kiki Krunch, union leaders, former supervisor Dean Preston, and supervisors Shamann Walton and Jackie Fielder.
Kim Tavaglione, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, said Chan is the only candidate who does “kitchen-table economics” and understands the struggles of putting food on the table, childcare and keeping a roof over one’s head in San Francisco.
Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, listed Chan as a working-family fighter alongside New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani and Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson.
“I’m not interested in finding a good billionaire big brother to fight against the bad billionaires,” Mitchell said. “I’m interested in finding working-families fighters … to challenge the billionaire class.”
“Guess what?” Chan replied. “We’re gonna tax them all the way!”
But to fight moneyed interests, one needs money, and Chan, who joined the race in November, is lagging behind in fundraising: She had amassed just over $174,000 by the end of 2025.
Both her main opponents, Wiener and Saikat Chakrabarti, finished 2025 with well over $1 million raised each. Wiener formed a committee as early as 2023 to explore the possibility of a congressional race. Chakrabarti, who made a fortune in tech, gave $1.47 million to his own campaign.
Chan closed her three-day kickoff Sunday at the Sunset Recreation Center with more union leaders, an even hoarser voice after a packed weekend participating in the California Democratic Party convention, and no mention of the neighborhood’s most heated topic: the Great Highway.
Emcee Rudy Gonzalez of the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council said that introducing Chan, who he called “our future Congresswoman from San Francisco,” was like introducing Pelosi back in 2018.
Chan invited District 4 candidate and Walton chief of staff Natalie Gee as one of the speakers. Selena Chu, activist in the recall campaign against Joel Engardio, was also in the audience.
Chan, who was described by Gonzalez as “a working mom with an immigrant story,” specifically acknowledged the struggles, the silence, and “especially woman warriors” of the Filipino American community, and pledged to represent all the different voices of the Sunset.
“I know that we have different politics and a whole spectrum of it,” she said. “You’re sending our voice collectively to Washington, D.C.”
The voters referred to are not “Chinese” voters, they are American voters. Call them “Chinese-American” or “Americans of Chinese ancestry” if you must refer to their ethnicity.
Really the media should be *discouraging* people from voting for candidates on the basis of race, not treating it as normal and okay. Voting for representatives should be based on things like their policies, beliefs, character, track record, values, integrity, competence, etc., not their ethnicity.
But if you feel you must talk about ethnicity, please don’t play into the hands of xenophobes by branding American voters as “Chinese”.
Starchild is consistently the voice of reason — true to the founding principles of our nation.
Chan has been my D1 Supervisor for over 5 years and she hasn’t done a single productive thing for the district and hasn’t initiated a single piece of significant legislation. Chan just doesn’t know how to get squat done. She’s a reactionary masquerading as a so-called “progressive” and a massive anti-housing NIMBY.
Senator Scott Wiener, in contrast, is the best legislator in the State, the principal author of the most significant pro-housing, pro-civil rights and truly progressive laws over the past decade and is, by far, the best choice to represent CA11 in Congress.
Yes, Karl, in terms of experience and ability to get things done, Chan is a first-grader who is posturing as a progressive to try and perform above her station.
Wiener is the standout candidate here and should easily win as he is the only top tier candidate running.
Scott Wiener has given us goodies like junk fees in restaurants. But more importantly, an unfunded housing mandate which only benefits RE developers of ultra-luxury prestige projects. He hasn’t found one single dime to actually build any housing. And sending dollars our way is the number one skill that is needed from a representative.
What a pile of baloney.
In fact, the single `100% affordable housing project (for low income seniors) that has been completed in Chan’s district (where I live) during her 5 year tenure was entirely made possible by the pro-housing / streamlining bills that Senator Wiener authored and worked with his colleagues in the legislature to get passed into law.
Chan, on the other hand, has railed again these laws and has spent the past 5 years, stymying housing creation in both D1 and through out the City.
Chan is exactly what we don’t need in Congress — time to end her political career, once and for all.
Mission Local just published a piece about how AI is driving rents higher in San Francisco. Well, dear reader, the problem is instead NIMBYs like Supervisor Chan. San Franciscans deserve better than her.
So, I really dislike weiner for a variety of reasons, mostly due to sucking up to rich interests and playing politics. I “suppose” that is what you need, but I’m really tired of it. That refusal to answer “is israel committing a genocide” really turned me off. Grow a spine dude and pick a side.
Charkarabarti…. whatever. If you’re THAT rich and you literally do nothing to invest in this city other than talk a good game, you’re just another rich guy who’s moved from amassing money to amassing power. Show me a centi-millionare who actually puts millions into the city he lives in and MAYBE I’ll support him/her.
Chan. Ugh. In general, other than that idiocy with the great highway, she’s actually pretty good from an ideology point and having an actual idea of wtf is important to people who literally have a hard time putting food on the table. She’s really done a lot of one-on-one with people and grew up.
I pretty much decided to cover my eyes and vote for Weiner, but i’m soooooooooo tired of people focusing all their time on moderates. Even his yimby movement, which started out with affordable housing and real solid ideas, turned into this bizarre supply-side-economics model with construction companies and rich investors being all supportive and publishing articles for him (like the sfStandard, which is owned by that moritz douche billionare real-estate flipper).
So… I’d prefer a good candidate with a spine and some recognition that this city suffers so much BECAUSE of such wealth inequality, not due to a lack of rich people. I want a Mamdami. I want someone like AOC, but harder and willing to stand up and really put themselves out there. Maybe Chan won’t, but the others most certainly will do nothing.
Anyone but Scott Wiener. ” Question: considering what’s happening in Gaza a genocide?” No answer then “euh…yes…euh..no…euh…yes…euh no…” then 5 days later “euh…yes” ..because he realized he was losing credibility and political points. I do not trust the dude, he represents the old democratic guard, the Pelosi one, the one who got us the orange thing in office.
Right now, Chan is a far superior candidate over the carpetbagger from New York Chakrabarti or the fake liberal Wiener, but others may yet declare their candidacy.
Wiener is the only liberal in this race. Chan is a conservative and Chakrabarti is a populist (where the horseshoe far left and right meet).