Would anyone confuse Daniel Lurie and Saikat Chakrabarti’s political messaging? Probably not. But their playbooks for winning elected office? That, you could confuse.
Chakrabarti, one of the three leading candidates to succeed Rep. Nancy Pelosi, appears to have adopted Lurie’s winning formula: Lavish self-financing, a sentiment of anti-status quo and a robust ground game with a battalion of paid canvassers — and especially, a record number of Chinese-language canvassers.
Lurie enjoyed an exceptionally well-staffed Chinese field team — 23 paid canvassers at its peak — who brought him dominant support from Asian voters and, ultimately, a mayoral victory.
Chakrabarti has taken a page from that campaign: He now runs one of the largest paid canvasser operations in San Francisco history, with more than 250 of them, including two dozen who speak Cantonese, according to the campaign.
By contrast, the other leading candidates, Sen. Scott Wiener and Supervisor Connie Chan say they have no paid staff whose sole job is canvassing; this work is largely undertaken by volunteers.
Both Lurie and Chakrabarti kicked off their campaigns with low name recognition, and are largely free from the constraints of endorsements; unshackled by meeting the expectations of those who endorsed them. They even share the same headquarters at 800 Irving St., and Chakrabarti voted for Lurie in 2024.
Also reminiscent of Lurie’s campaign: There seems to be no ceiling for centimillionaire Chakrabarti, whose largely self-funded effort stands at $1.77 million as of Dec. 31, 2025, including $1.47 million in loans to himself. (The next campaign finance filing deadline is April 15.) He is now spending tens of thousands of dollars every week on ads alone.
Chakrabarti’s numbers game
Eager to do a lot of walking? Do you speak Cantonese? Chakrabarti’s campaign is hiring and paying $45 an hour.
“If I spoke Cantonese, I’d go walk a precinct with this guy,” political consultant Jim Ross said.
His English-speaking canvassers make between $30 and $35, also higher than the typical $25 to $30 range in San Francisco campaigns, according to political consultant James Stearns.
“This is no different than tech companies outpaying each other for tech workers,” said Thomas Li, president of the Edwin M. Lee Asian Pacific Democratic Club.
Li led the Asian and Pacific Islander outreach for former mayor Ed Lee’s 2011 campaign. “There’s a limited supply of talent, and you really want the best to build your team.”
The toughest soldiers are those who have worked previous campaigns, and still commit to the grueling work. They have thick skin and don’t mind having doors slammed in their faces or being yelled at when they approach voters, Li said.
One of Chakrabarti’s two Cantonese field organizers, Albert Lam, echoes the point. “It’s a very niche supply,” said the 23-year-old, a University of California, Los Angeles, graduate with bachelor’s degree in economics.
With the high hourly wage, “it’s not hard to find motivated people,” Lam said.
But he needs more: Workers who really resonate with Chakrabarti’s platform, and are willing to see things from voters’ perspective.
Culture is a challenge. Team Chakrabarti needs to find people from the Chinese American community — one that often feels unheard — who care about politics, believe the government can work better for voters, and are passionate enough to walk around to talk about it, said Lam.
The campaign gathered its soldiers through the job-search website Indeed, paper posters and, most important, word of mouth (the pay is irresistibly good).
Some canvassers still quit after walking up too many hills, but those who stay include troopers who have deep community ties, including some multilinguals who speak not only Cantonese and English, but also Mandarin, Toisanese and Spanish.
“The core of Lurie’s strategy was recognizing the Chinese vote was important and important enough to invest heavily into,” said Jeremy Lee, president of the Rose Pak Asian American Club. “Saikat is doing that strategy as well, given that he’s paying top dollar for canvassers who very well might not be good.”
Chinese-American voters account for more than one-sixth of the electorate.
The rule of thumb with canvassers is that they can reach between six and 12 people an hour, according to political consultant Ross.
That means that, with more than 200 dedicated canvassers — a historical number in city political history — it’s possible to saturate a mid-sized city like San Francisco with door-knockers at least once in the two months leading up to the June primary.
Chakrabarti’s paid canvassers usually work 3 to 8 p.m. on weekdays, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekends. The over 250 paid canvassers — a growing number, and there are also a legion of volunteer canvassers — are technically able to cover all the 469,514 voters in California’s 11th congressional district.
But that still doesn’t mean Chakrabarti is locked in for a top-two spot in the June primary.
“Basically, what he’s buying is a couple percentage points,” said Ross, because many of those canvassers’ attempts will be met with empty homes, voters who completely disregard this election, and voters who’ve already decided to support other candidates.
Even in the most professionally managed teams, there’ll be canvassers who “go to a coffee shop and read a book” during work hours, Ross added.
But it could be worthwhile, since only the top two finishers advance to November’s general election. The race for second place in June may come down to as few as a couple thousand, or even a couple hundred, votes.
Different approaches from Wiener and Chan
Paying 250 canvassers top-dollar is a luxury the other two leading candidates, Wiener and Chan, don’t have. They’re running campaigns with far fewer paid canvassers, if any, both due to less cash on hand and different strategies.
Canvassing isn’t as valuable for Wiener and Chan as for Chakrabarti; both already have decent name recognition in San Francisco, and many voters have already formed opinions about them.
Chan is also hamstrung by having raised less than $200,000 by the end of 2025, compared to $2.8 million for Wiener and $1.8 million for Chakrabarti. Wiener also needs to set aside a significant portion of his war chest for the general election; he will all but certainly be in the top-two spot in June.
Chan’s campaign currently has no paid canvassers, according to campaign spokesperson Julie Edwards. But with the support of organized labor, various political groups and Asian community groups, more than 100 volunteers have canvassed and phone-banked for Chan since February, Edwards said.
Chan and Wiener are able to “tap into those deep networks to have people that have actually gained from what they’ve done for them,” said Eric Kingsbury, manager of former mayor London Breed’s 2024 campaign.
People like that, Kingsbury continued, can be more persuasive than paid canvassers because they are undoubtedly passionate about the candidate and can share firsthand examples of how the candidates have changed their lives.
Kingsbury, for example, said that a paid Chakrabarti canvasser showed up at his door, reading off a script but demonstrating little understanding of the talking points.
For Wiener’s campaign, around 15 salaried field staffers coordinate about 40 volunteers every week and join them on canvassing runs, according to spokesperson Joe Arellano.
Given Wiener’s high name recognition — he has won three citywide races and has held elected office since 2011 — common campaign tactics like putting up window signs no longer carry the same weight.
The campaign is “more about reminding voters and refreshing their memory about everything he’s done for San Francisco, and less about introducing him,” said Arellano.
And, Arellano said, Chakrabarti’s campaign is not the only one that has learned from the most recent mayoral race.
“One of the lessons from 2024 is that the public doesn’t view wealthy candidates negatively if they have real connections to San Francisco — the way Mayor Lurie does with Tipping Point and Levi’s,” Arellano said.
“That gives candidates with money the ability to spread their message far and wide, with the potential to catch fire and go on to victory,” he said.
In other words, you can’t allow a campaign loaded with cash to spread its message unimpeded. With that in mind, Wiener‘s campaign recently began targeting Chakrabarti, labeling him as a rich guy trying to buy San Francisco’s seat. A tech-funded PAC has done the same, cutting ads describing Chakrabarti as an outsider from Maryland.
Chakrabarti’s campaign has fired back, describing Wiener as a politician “who will do anything just to build a political career.”
This is the first article in a two-part story about Congressional candidate Saikat Chakrabarti’s ground game. Read part two here.
In contradistinction to Senator Wiener, Chakrabarti hasn’t done squat for San Francisco .
He hasn’t put in the time and effort and has never authored and gotten passed into law a single piece of legislation.
In short he is utterly unqualified to represent Congressional District 11.
Accordingly, he should put in the hard/necessary work, run for local office and/or dedicate himself to being a high-level, party organizer (i.e., not just for himself) or state-level official, and develop the requisite experience before assuming he is qualified to to throw a ball, much less swing a bat, in the big leagues.
Given the current shit-storm happening the national level, every voter should know by now that experienced/dedicated/quality leadership matters more than ever.
He has been organizing people in the party for the last decade, helping to recruit and elect a number of progressive candidates to the house. He’s now running for national office, which is where he has experience electorally and as a staffer.
Scott Wiener did nothing FOR San Francisco, just look at Muni, BART and Caltrain, but he sure did things TO San Francisco, like zone for much more housing that is supposed to depend on a collapsing transit system to move newcomers around, and taking the risk of forcing the voters to raise sales taxes on ourselves during a cost of living crisis to keep transit afloat.
Two things,
First, the millionaire class is well represented in Congress and we don’t need another one.
And, second, this guy began his campaign emphasizing his work on behalf of Bernie and AOL and neither of them have endorsed him.
And, third, why not really piss Trump off and send a Chinese Immigrant to replace Pelosi.
Wait, I said two things and listed three.
Hmmm, well, that’s just the kind of guy I am.
go Niners !!
h.
Interesting. I read here that Chakrabarti voted for Lurie in 2024. But I still view him as a carpetbagger. I am no fan of Wiener. Period. So, unless Chan (who has no chance of advancing) pisses me off, she gets my vote. Full disclosure: Other than the fact that Connie Chan is a member of the SF Board of Supervisors, I know nothing about her. This is both good and bad. Good, because if she did something as dumb as some now former Board members, I would have heard of it, and held it against her. Bad, because she has not done something to elevate the city enough to impress for higher office consideration. I prefer someone to represent San Francisco with a big mouth, if you will.
Unfortunately, America has become a battle of “choose your king” and not remotely representative of the people. This guy has great talking points, but he’s just a vapit rich techie who wants to buy power. You know how Bernie got to office? Knocking on doors and working locally and getting things done for his people. You know how AOC got into office? Knocking on doors and getting people help, literally wearing out pairs of shoes. Even canvasing in districts that weren’t hers but they were parts of neighborhoods she was working with. How about Obama? He set up tables in the main floor of the projects buildings and gave free legal advice every week for years. Even before being elected to anything. Nowadays? Talk a good game and pay enough people and you are good to go. Weiner, I can’t stand him, but he’s a legit guy who has a lot of positions I don’t agree with, but I think he’s legit and represents a substantial part of the population here. Chan? She’s not real exciting, but she’s a stand up person and actually steps in and helps out her community. People get pissed off that she’s not as polished as Weiner and has been hit with things a bit sideways quite often. But she’s honestly a good person with a backbone. So…. I wish Weiner had the views of Chakrabarti and the “I’ll try to do the right thing” of Chan, but whenever I hear him talk, I feel like I need to go take a shower. Chan probably won’t win, but I’ll support her. I think over time she’d be a force to be reckoned with, whereas Weiner will be in office for 10000 years and probably will be powerful, but probably will always be subject to the monied end of the “moderate” power brokers rather than the peopld. And Chakrabarti? He’ll be trying to buy the presidency or a governorship, he doesn’t give a shit about us. So, I’ll vote for the underdog and probably watch her get spanked by Chack’s money and Scott’s power. Ugh. Politics is so frustrating.
This is literally why I’m all in for Saikat. I’ve walked next to him through the city at events and gone door to door for him. He’s out there, literally boots on the ground, bringing his message directly to the people.
He didn’t start in politics – and yes, he made money in tech. But he’s the first to say (I’ve heard him articulate it at town halls across the city) that he doesn’t believe he should have been entitled to the insane amount of money he got just for winning the ‘startup lottery’, and he thinks teachers should be paid as well as software engineers.
I give him credit for doing what he’s doing while he’s young enough to have the energy and vitality to make this transition into politics.
He supports big, bold proposals to reimagine what a progressive government can do for the people – and that’s what we need! I am hoping he’s our next congressional representative.
I’m a long time city resident in a rent controlled apartment – and his bold message resonates with me far better than the tepid institutional politics of Weiner or anyone in the Dem establishment.
Don’t take my work for it – hop on a Google chat with Saikat and talk to him directly! He does them every week… that’s how I first became introduced to him and his campaign.
Who’s willing to stand up to the moneyed interests? Seems to me only Connie Chan has demonstrated that, while centimillionaires obey corporate developers.
In my opinion their political messaging is identical, simply: “I am rich”
Came back from a week away to find two Chakrabarti flyers rubber-banded to my front door, like a big sign saying “the occupant is out of town, rob me!” I hate door hangers and he just lost my vote for compromising my security.
Progressive politics are the compromise the graduate-degreed left makes with the establishment, and the Democrat Party is where progressive politics go to die.
That said, good riddance to the vile and endlessly corrupt corporate warmonger Pelosi, and anyone but Wiener.
Lest my garbled syntax be misunderstood, I meant “anyone but Wiener”, not good riddance to anyone but Wiener.
I only support the Socialist Equality Party and have done for more than 25 years. The two capitalist parties do not represent me in any way. They represent the banks, oligarchs, the weapons manufacturers and their bought-and-paid-for stooges in Congress. I loathed Pelosi and never voted for her.