Saikat Chakrabarti is just five percentage points behind frontrunner Sen. Scott Wiener, according to a new poll commissioned and shared by Chakrabarti’s campaign and conducted by Data For Progress.
The poll, which surveyed 537 likely primary voters in California 11th congressional district in English only, found Wiener leading Chakrabarti 33-to-28 heading into June’s primary. The margin of error is four percent. Connie Chan, the District 1 supervisor, polled at 13 percent.
San Francisco political observers have long expected that Wiener will win the June primary election, where only two top candidates can advance to the November general election, regardless of party affiliation. That would leave Chan and Chakrabarti to battle for second place.
Chakrabarti, a former tech engineer and centimillionaire, joined the race to succeed Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi with little to no name recognition in San Francisco, compared to the other two leading candidates, Wiener and Chan, both longtime politicians in the city.
But he has quickly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and is self-funding his campaign to the tune of $1.5 million, seeking to buy that visibility.
The poll, if accurate, shows that strategy is working. Still, there are limitations for Chakrabarti: Wiener holds a commanding lead among Democratic voters — 47 percent of those respondents chose him during a hypothetical primary vs. 26 percent for Chakrabarti. About 63.4 percent of voters in this race are registered as Democrats.
The polling was conducted from April 3 to April 8, 2026 by Data for Progress, a progressive pollster often used by left-of-center campaigns. Nate Silver, the statistician and founder of FiveThirtyEight, gave the pollster a C+ and ranked it as having a slight Democratic bias.
The pollster asked 537 likely voters (who were almost entirely Democrats and Independents) for their views on the congressional race. It surveyed them using online forms and text messaging.
Non-English-speaking voters were excluded from the poll. Those include at least 4.5 percent of the district’s voters who request ballots in Chinese. Monolingual Chinese voters are likely to be part of Chan’s base, though Chakrabarti is spending big to make inroads into that population.
The poll also asked about favorability, and found Chakrabarti had the highest net ratings.
Among the 537 likely voters, 52 percent said they had a favorable opinion of Wiener and 46 percent unfavorable, a difference of six percent.
Some 48 percent have favorable opinions of Chakrabarti and 34 percent unfavorable, a 14 percent difference.
A full 97 percent of respondents have already heard of Wiener, however, while 18 percent said they “haven’t heard enough to say” about Chakrabarti.
For Chan, 36 percent had a favorable view and 37 percent unfavorable, a negative 1 percent rating, though 27 percent said they hadn’t heard enough to say.
Chakrabarti is an Indian American who made a fortune as an early employee of the payments platform Stripe. He joined Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign before launching Justice Democrats to recruit new leaders to run for Congress.
Justice Democrats’ greatest success was helping then-unknown Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez overtake longtime congressman Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th Congressional District in 2018.
Chakrabarti joined her on Capitol Hill as her chief of staff, but left a few months later, after being criticized on the Hill for publicly disparaging more moderate Democratic lawmakers online.
Chakrabarti’s resignation occurred shortly after a private meeting between Ocasio-Cortez and Pelosi, and was widely perceived at the time as a peace offering between the two lawmakers.
A decade later, Chakrabarti is running to succeed Pelosi.
His campaign has raised $1.77 million as of Dec. 31, 2025, with $1.47 million of that coming from his personal fortune. The next campaign-finance filing deadline is April 15.
So far, Chakrabarti’s campaign is running one of the largest paid canvasser operations in San Francisco’s history — well over 250 people — and spending tens of thousands of dollars on ads alone every week.
This guy doesn’t need your free ad,
So, he did well in a poll that he paid for ?
Surprise, Surprise, Surprise !!
(as Gomer Pyle used to say)
go Niners !!
h.
Weird that they conducted the poll in English only. Who does that in San Francisco?
(I guess the answer is: this pollster that earned a C+ rating from Nate Silver. I followed the link, too, to check if he’s just a harsh grader — and nope, there are hundreds of other pollsters he gives higher grades than that.)
If they actually wanted an accurate picture of the race, it seems like a bare minimum would be to include Cantonese and Spanish.
We cannot build our way out of a housing affordability crisis created by wealth disparity. Building enriches the very people who cause the prices to rise. Developers do not care whether or not a condo is occupied or sold; a stock portfolio’s value depends on what people say it is worth, not the value of the assets inside it. Besides, in San Francisco condo prices are dropping without any additional building, losing 20% of their value in the last three years.
There are 72,000 units already permitted, but the developers won’t build them unless the city guarantees a high profit and the right to not include affordable units. We have not accounted for the environmental damage of density or the cost of infrastructure. People imagine they will get spacious condos, but what is being built is junior suite sized hotel rooms with no light, high HOA fees, and expensive insurance.
See Patrick Condon’s excellent book, Broken City, on what happened in Vancouver, BC when they upzoned the entire city. After tripling the number of housing units, prices rose 600% because the land and land speculation portfolios were more valuable than the housing. Plus, the costs of upgrading the infrastructure increased the property and sales taxes.
Chan’s campaign has been invisible. Her platform is tepid, does not rise to the moment.
Will we hear a murmur from the Chan campaign before we hear a murmur from the progressive grandees on the right wing charter amendment that threatens to weld the doors shut on progressive politics moving forward?
They can’t build so they keep on digging.
Are these people actively being paid to sabotage progressive politics or are they naturally that ineffective?
marcos,
Chan’s actually not “progressive” — she’s anti-progress.
Chakrabarti did not write the Green New Deal. That document came from the UK 50 years ago and was modified by several committees in the US starting in the 1970 and was most recently headed by Senator Markey.
He is not listed as being AOC’s chief of staff on any public record. I called her office and they cannot verify that he had that role.
He said that Trump’s White House ballroom should be a public event space. That’s impossible. Besides, if it ever gets built, it should be torn down. He insists that there should be some kind of public bank -although he clearly has no idea what that is or involves, about the history of what he thinks are “public” aka government run banks, or the fact that there are only two in the US (one in American Samoa b/c no bank would set up there &one for oil companies) .
He is another rich guy who imagines his wealth makes him smart.
I mean I agree with the sentiment, but he did really work for AOC (https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/02/aoc-staff-saikat-chakrabarti-climate-1445478) so let’s not go spouting complete lies here.
Democrats not standing up to genocide is likely what tipped the scales & cost them the presidency. How many voters that hard passed on enabling genocide are going to change their tune this election? Democrats love to play chicken & get pissed when they lose. smh
I don’t know if you know this, but there are plenty of California issues that do not involve Gaza.
All three are terrible potential replacements for Nancy Pelosi. I have to choose one, but I don’t want any of them. Sigh.
If Chakrabarti wants to win, he should send out renderings of the Marina Safeway project.
Glad to see that Connie Chan is tanking, but that would be expected because she is a merely a status quo reactionary disguised as a “progressive” and whose primary constituency is the “I’ve-got-mine-so-screw-everybody-else” Aaron Peskin / NIMBY crowd.
On the other hand, as a Maryland transplant, the very wealthy Chakrabarti is simply trying the buy the office using his own money. He is entirely unqualified for the position — having never authored a single piece of legislation, much less got it passed not law — and has zero political experience in San Francisco/CA District 11. If that weren’t bad enough, his ads — that bombard us from all directions — are ludicrously bad, devoid of all substance and an assault on one’s senses.
In contradistinction to the two aforementioned candidates, State Senator and former SF Supervisor, Scott Wiener, has served San Francisco/CA District 11 astoundingly well over the course of decades and is, without a doubt the most forward-thinking politician in my lifetime, and best legislator in the entire state. We’d be most fortunate to have him advocating for us at the national level.
I would have disagreed with you on principle, but agree with you based on actions. I knew Connie when she was Sophie Maxwell’s aide. I was proud when she won for the BOS. But why does she oppose more residential density on Geary and California streets? Why did she vote to require thousands of SF residents to get second mortgages to install sprinklers in their own apartments except that none of those residents live in her district? As for Scott, I opposed him for beating my hero Rafael but must admit that Scott was a hard worker on the BOS and at the state. I am very unhappy that his density legislation overrides local process but it’s the only way to encourage more housing where I live, help reduce the homeless population, and get more riders on Muni.
I think there are very really questions about Scott’s integrity and ethics. We’re currently experiencing a huge spike in cost of living as a direct result of our continued military and diplomatic support of Israel. Democrats are trying to paint this as entirely on Trump and Bibi when the war / genocide in Gaza started during Biden’s term. I don’t think it takes a huge amount of foresight to predict that Israel would eventually want to move on Iran.
Scott authored AB 715 which hushed criticism of Israel, led diplomatic trips to Israel during the genocide and has been a vocal critic of the boycott, divest and sanction movement. He’s been a vocal supporter of Israel for years and he’s pledged to continue sending military aid to Israel.
I’m not sure how you reconcile this war is making SF more unaffordable, Israel is committing a genocide and continued military aid to Israel.
I mean, if we’re talking about when the war and genocide in Palestine started, it was already ongoing when I was a kid, so it’s kind of on every American president’s watch for the past half century or more.
If the Drump years have proved anything to me, it’s to NOT vote for some rich dude with zero legislative experience. Scott Wiener has been effective and a hard worker over many, many years. Not sure why so many SF “progressives” think Chakrabarti would be a better choice than a homegrown politician who is progressive by DC standards, and is willing to put in a hard day’s work. Maybe if Chakrabarti got a real job and came back in about ten years, we could talk. #queerforqueer
Sally I think Scott’s lack of moral clarity on the Gaza genocide is disqualifying. I think we saw in that viral clip very real questions of whether Scott will prioritize moneyed interests over his constituents. Further, he authored AB 715 which stifles pro-Palestine speech in schools and has been a very staunch opponent of the BDS movement — and notably has not agreed to stop military aid to Israel.
We’re currently experiencing the worst oil shock in decades which will lead to increase in cost of basic consumer goods, transportation and housing construction. We need less corporate Democrats and less Democrats that are beholden to a foreign state.
Scott has gone on recent diplomatic trips organized by Tye Gregory (former AIPAC). I don’t think he is the right congressman to start distancing ourselves from Israel.
Lastly, although Scott has said he now sees what is happening in Gaza as a genocide I think its fair to question his sincerity. There is a very large Palestinian community in the Mission / Excelsior. I think if he was sincere in how he felt he would spend more time with the arab community to understand how we can best support them / empathize with them.
Andre, I seriously doubt that Gaza will be a deciding factor for many voters. Not just because that war ended last year. But also that most voters are focused more on domestic issues like the economy, crime, taxes, housing, healthcare and transport. Ideological issues and conflicts in faraway places come way below that.
Ben our support for Israel is directly impacting cost of living and is plunging the world into a global recession. The Iran war is a huge blunder and the democratic establishment is complicit in our involvement. We’ve never put restraints on military aid and have always provided political cover.
This closing of the strait has more impact on the economy and cost of living than any bill Scott could author.
Israel just goaded the US into a war with global economic implications that will leave Iran stronger, the US and Israel weaker coming out of it and which seasons the ground for a round of scorching antisemitism as a reaction to Israel’s horrific murder spree.
If these matters are not to be discussed during a campaign for the US House while the conflict is still live, then when do we discuss them?
Odds are that the demise of the petrodollar will spell the demise of Israel as a brutal ethno-theocracy.
“Not sure why so many SF ‘progressives’ think Chakrabarti would be a better choice [than Wiener]…”
We don’t. We think Chan would be a better choice.
Scott Wiener is about as queer as the Mattachine Society was and is not home grown, Wiener is a transplant from New Jersey.
Let me just add my voice to the chorus of people who will be voting against Weiner due to his support of Israel. It’s kind of a bummer, I really like the guy, was happy to have him in local and state government, but he cannot hold an office where he will actually have some degree of influence of foreign policy.
sam,
Senator Wiener’s stance on Israel’s military operations has shifted from initial support for defense to sharp condemnation of the war’s conduct. As of April 2026, he has publicly characterized Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide.”
EVOLUTION OF HIS POSITION:
Initial Support (October 2023): Following the October 7 attacks, Wiener stated that Israel had “every right to protect itself” and argued that Hamas must be “entirely eliminated”.
Growing Criticism (2024–2025): As the conflict intensified, he began calling for a negotiated ceasefire and described the bombardment of Gaza as “indefensible”. By late 2025, he argued the war went “far beyond self-defense” and called the scale of death “immoral”.
“Genocide” Declaration (January 2026): In a significant reversal following a congressional debate, Wiener posted a video stating he believed the Israeli government committed genocide in Gaza. He cited the “absolute devastation,” the “catastrophic death toll,” and attempts to “push Palestinians out” as the basis for this label.
As a U.S. Representative, I do not believe you’re going to see Scott Wiener voting to give a dime to Israel’s radical and horrific war machine.
Trump is delivering on right wing priorities in ways that the Democrats would never deliver on left wing priorities. If anything, Trump proves that a billionaire with no experience can deliver what the political elites can’t or won’t. I’m not voting for Saikat, but your reasoning is faulty.
Chakrabarti would be a welcome breath of fresh air in the Democratic party. We have an affordability crisis in the country. That means we need more progressive policies on housing, health care and the like. Environment and jobs for the working and middle classes? Chakrabarti wrote the Green New Deal. A vote for Wiener is a vote for the status quo of the Democratic party. What do we need right now?
Just another technocrat in sheep’s clothing. In case you didn’t know he’s happy to spout all the stuff progressives want to hear, but he’s just another tech-protective centrist. He’s Daniel Lurie’s man. He’s so committed to our public amenities that he sends his kids to private school.
It’s between Chakrabarti and Wiener. Wiener has a record we are all familiar with. He’s the devil we know. If you think his deeds were so great that he merits a promotion, all good. I am casting out for change, the devil we don’t know. Why? Because the status quo of wealth consolidation is way out of control. I don’t have faith that establishment Dems like Wiener are up to the task.
More consequential than any polls are the conclusions being drawn now by the ruling class and Wall Street. To maintain power in the wake of Trump’s titanic debacle in the Middle East, they must allow the Democratic Party to take ownership of the mess and proceed “more intelligently” with the United States’ pursuit of its imperialistic interests there.
To get a more complete idea of what I am describing, I would refer readers, with their indulgence, to David North’s precise perspective at the World Socialist Web Site today:
“The New York Times, the Democratic Party and the preparation of Phase 2 of the war against Iran”: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/04/13/hfpr-a13.html
What does this have to do with Chakrabarti’s rise in the polls?
Requiring lots of money and an aversion to logic, the promotion of DSA politicians is key to tamping down any growing resistance of the working class to the capitalist system itself as it tumbles into greater and greater crises.
The capitalist system requires these types of politicians to promote illusions of democracy and reform while keeping voters chained to nationalism– especially when mainstream Democrats are hated and in complete disarray.
Chakrabarti, like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Zohran Mamdani, is no genuine socialist. His job, like that of the others, is to lead voters away from drawing the conclusion that a fundamental break with capitalism is required to counter growing authoritarianism, austerity, and war.