Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s communications director, Ian Krager, will be Supervisor Connie Chan’s congressional campaign’s communications director starting Aug. 1, according to Chan’s campaign.
Political consultants say the move is yet another sign that Pelosi is putting her thumb on the scale for Chan. Pelosi endorsed Chan on May 18 and has since shepherded her through major fundraising opportunities in Washington. And, now, she is offering Chan the top talent on her team.
Krager, 26, is one of the last two communications staffers left in Pelosi’s office.
“It has been the honor of a lifetime to help tell the story of Speaker Pelosi’s historic leadership for San Francisco and America,” Krager, who’s been Pelosi’s communications director since July 2024, said in a statement. “I’m thrilled to join Connie Chan’s campaign at this pivotal moment.”
Krager, who will relocate to San Francisco, is expected to bring Chan more news coverage in more prominent newspapers.
“She’s doing everything she can to get [Chan] elected,” said Nadia Rahman, who was the political director of Saikat Chakrabarti’s congressional campaign and now supports Chan.
Campaigns are a different beast versus communications work in the capital, but Krager has the experience of dealing with and building relationships with reporters at every level from local news to international news as Pelosi’s spokesperson, said Rahman. It’s something no one else in this race currently has, she added.
Chan’s current campaign spokesperson and consultant Julie Edwards will stay on as a consultant.
The decision followed Chan’s two-day trip to Washington last week that included a meeting with Pelosi on Wednesday early afternoon, and an evening reception hosted by both Pelosi and Sen. Adam Schiff.
The two days were filled with at least 10 meetings, events and media appearances, which would help build Chan a national Democratic coalition around the themes of labor, abortion rights, gun safety, education and climate.
She also recorded a segment for The Dean Obeidallah Show, a national radio show that examines current issues from a Muslim American perspective.
I’ll be interested to see how he communicates how a “do nothing” at the city district level will do anything meaningful at the national level.
“Do nothing”? Seriously? Chan’s budgeting, accounting, and advocacy skills, especially to help SF during Lurie’s awful layoff intentions, are amazing. Calling Chan a “do nothing” is incorrect
You write, “Political consultants say the move is yet another sign that Pelosi is putting her thumb on the scale for Chan.”
Putting a thumb on the scale is rooted in the dishonest practice of merchants putting a literal thumb on a literal scale to make it appear that the customer is getting more than they are, and paying for more than they receive. It is inherently dishonest.
Nancy Pelosi is free to endorse anyone she pleases for this or any other office.
If there are actual political consultants saying she is being dishonest for endorsing Connie Chan, you should tell us who they are. If it’s the reporter’s point of view, it shouldn’t appear in the article.
Scott has nothing but twist arms to force passage of his bills in Sacramento. Connie has been forced to work across the isle and compromise since she was thrown into a difficult City Hall full of big money opponents. She is the compromise specialist we need in Washington now to work with the opposition.
We don’t need or want any more bullies in Washington. For at least a few more years we need people who can work across the isle to compromise and produce a less painful solution. Based on her work in SF we believe Connie Chan can deliver in Washington DC.
By any reasonable standard (e.g. having been endorsed by Nancy Pelosi), Connie Chan is an establishment status-quo candidate running an establishment status-quo campaign, the major detectable policy gulf between her and Wiener being on the single hot-button issue of housing construction and affordability.
Yet a certain caste of NIMBYs are so desperate to depict their own opposition to housing construction and affordability as somehow “leftist” or “progressive”, that somehow Chan’s candidacy must be a leftist/NIMBY insurgency against an centrist/YIMBY status quo, all evidence to the contrary be damned.
I supported Harry Britt against Pelosi 40 years ago, and came to love her for all her work fighting AIDS and for ACA despite her defeat of the openly gay heir to Harvey Milk’s political legacy. Now I just can’t help but be sad to see her campaigning to ensure that her seat representing San Francisco in Congress, after all these years, remains in straight hands. And why? What are her policy disagreements with the gay guy exactly, Mr. Krager?
Why on earth does it matter whether a candidate is gay or not?
Isn’t that identity politics at its very worst?
And if Chan was gay and/or transgender would it make any difference?
At the end of the day, Chan’s agenda is a reactionary one and, furthermore, she is not up to the job and as a D1 resident I can personally attest to her utter failure as a Supervisor.
She has not authored a single piece of significant legislation and has been consistently anti-housing creation — whereas Scott Wiener has been at the forefront of broad spectrum of pro-housing legislation that has expedited housing creation across the City (including the only recent taxpayer financed low-income housing project in Chan’s very own district — something that she was unable to do) and has been a strong advocate for civil rights (including the rights of transgender youth) and all manner of other progressive reforms.
The fact that Nancy Pelosi, who has acquired a personal fortune north of $250M while in Congress, is supporting Chan just shows how out of touch she is with the struggles of the typical San Franciscan.
I’m so glad to see Pelosi supporting Chan. While Scott has been great in helping gay and trans rights he also has been bought and paid for by the real estate industry which is all powerful in California. The trickle down theory was shown it was crap during Reagan so people who are using it now for housing, aren’t arguing in good faith. Build affordable housing. Nor more ultra rich condos, houses, limited affordable housing in apartments etc. It does not trickle down. It gets taken off the market or gets bought as second homes for the ultra rich. Vote for Connie Chan.
You mean the ultra-rich like Pelosi — who amassed a fortune of over $250M while in Congress — by virtue of insider trading based upon privileged knowledge she acquired in her government capacity? That Nancy Pelosi?
Do you really believe that taxpayer-subsidize housing can address, at scale, the underlying housing affordability crisis in SF — which is driven by chronic scarcity due to 5+ decade of NIMBY-driven anti-housing policies?
We need more housing across the board; a whole lot of housing — both market-rate and below-market-rate — in order to mitigate ever-escalating housing costs.
Any other approach is sheer fantasy and a recipe for continuing gentrification of SF.
We need housing at all levels, which Wiener is working hard to make happen. When did market rate housing become “luxury?” Maybe after the failed policies and counter-productive actions of those who fight market rate housing in the hopes of compelling the city and developers to build unrealistic amounts of only affordable housing?
“The two days were filled with at least 10 meetings, events, and media appearance, which would help build Chan a national Democratic coalition around the themes of labor, abortion rights, gun safety, education and climate.”
There you have it, Pelosi and Schiff, regurgitating the failed “kitchen sink” approach of the Harris 2026 campaign while entirely missing the fundamental issue of the present: AFFORDABILITY! — of which “housing affordability”, specifically, is the keystone. And housing affordability can only be addressed by creating more housing — a lot more housing.
Senator Scott Wiener has been full-in and extraordinarily effective on this all-encompassing issue, whereas Connie Chan has been anti-housing-creation for her entire ineffectual career.
Scott Weiner is the clear choice to represent CA11 in Congress.
Scott Wiener’s legacy can be summed up in two words: Marina Safeway.
An endorsement from the greatest member of Congress ever should count for something!