Welcome back to our “Meet the Candidates” series, where the congressional candidates respond to a question in 100 words or fewer. Answers will be published every Monday.
To see what candidates said previously on topics like foreign policy and housing, read their answers here.
CA-11, the congressional district that Connie Chan and Scott Wiener are running to represent, includes most of San Francisco. Some southern neighborhoods (the Excelsior, Portola, Visitacion Valley and Ingleside) are a part of a neighboring district.
With a month until election day, the two camps and their supporters are trying to gain ground through negative campaigning against their opponents in hope of swaying voters who remain undecided.
Some of the recurring attacks have focused on Wiener’s financial backing from tech and AI industries, and his earlier position on Gaza. Critiques of Chan accuse her of having produced a thin legislative record and a history of obstruction.
These attacks often leave out context and give candidates little chance to explain the nuances of their records and positions.
This week’s question: What criticism have you received that you believe is unfair?
Scott Wiener
- Job: San Francisco’s State Senator
- Age: 56
- Residency: Homeowner, moved to San Francisco in 1997
- Transportation: Public transit and walking
- Education: Bachelor’s degree from Duke, law degree from Harvard
- Languages: English, Spanish
People say I’m just a nerd policy wonk, but I think that’s unfair. I am really into fantasy novels, too.
Endorsed by: The California Democratic Party, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Sierra Club, San Francisco YIMBY, Grow SF, San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, North Coast States Carpenters Union, Dolores Huerta … read more here.
Connie Chan
- Job: San Francisco District 1 Supervisor
- Age: 47
- Residency: Homeowner, has lived in San Francisco since she was 13
- Transportation: Driving, public transit, and walking
- Education: Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Davis
- Languages: English, Cantonese, Mandarin
It’s unfair to suggest that standing up for working people stands in the way of progress. As budget chair, I delivered a unanimous balanced budget, restored $28 million for essential services and established a $400 million reserve to protect San Franciscans from Trump’s cuts. I’ve supported thousands of homes and faster affordable housing approvals.
Congress has a different role than state and local governments. I’ll fight to lower the cost of living by ending Trump’s wars, investing in affordable housing, enacting Medicare for All and strengthening worker protections. My measure of progress is whether working people’s lives get better.
Endorsed by: Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff, Congressman Ro Khanna, California Federation of Labor Unions, SEIU California, San Francisco Labor Council, Working Families Party, San Francisco Tenant’s Union … read more here.
Candidates are ordered alphabetically and rotated each week. Answers may be lightly edited for formatting, spelling, and grammar. If you have questions for the candidates, please let us know at io@missionlocal.com or yujie@missionlocal.com.
Election Day is on Nov. 3, 2026. You can register to vote via the sf.gov website.
“I’ve supported thousands of homes and faster affordable housing approvals” lolololo
Connie Chan, NIMBY leader in the tradition of Aaron Peskin who she used to work for now wants to tell us that she supports homes. She has made it very clear that the only homes she supports are 100% affordable ones. She opposes market rate housing, just like Peskin, Preston and the rest of the NIMBY preservationist crowd. She wants to preserve San Francisco in amber while she watches the value of her property skyrocket. She opposed turning the Nordstrom’s parking lot in SOMA into housing. She voted against the Mayor’s Family Zoning Plan. She delays and blocks housing at every turn and has done so her entire career. It’s what she stands for.
If you want more housing in San Francisco and lower rents then vote for the candidate who has supported housing his entire career: that’s Scott Wiener.
My oldest is in college. She would love to someday return to the city of her birth, where her friends and family all live. She would love to come back home to San Francisco. She can’t afford to because of the insane rents. And I blame Connie Chan for that.
We have made great progress in San Francisco by electing a pro-housing majority to the Board of Supervisors for the first time in a generation. Don’t make the terrible mistake of sending someone so fundamentally opposed to new housing to Congress.
Scott is better than Chan on housing but if anyone thinks we’re going to upzone the west side from DC they’re living in a fantasy world. Scott WILL get opportunities to send money to Israel, to vote for the existing weak kneed leadership under Jefferies (said so himself). Connie won’t have a chance to reopen the great highway from Washington.
I’ve flipped back and forth on my vote not due to the candidate belief alignment with my own but rather what the job they are running for entails, and what it has and doesn’t have the ability to do. Leaning Connie but going to the debate tomorrow and could still change my mind. Scott’s quote in this paper “I look forward to electing Hakeem Jeffries Speaker” reeks of not understanding the moment expected of federally elected Democrats IMO.
The takeaway:
Scott Wiener has both self-awareness and a sense of humor whereas Connie Chan evidently does not.
Scott Wiener is so arrogant. He doesn’t even bother to answer the question. Connie is actually out there campaigning. Personally, I think Wiener senses a small lead but he knows the tide may be turning. He’s trying to keep a low profile and run out the clock.
State Senator Wiener is not only “out there campaigning”, but is, more importantly, authoring and sponsoring legislation; and do the hard work of actually getting bills passed into law on the critical issues of civil rights, healthcare and housing — whereas as Connie Chan is apparently campaigning full time and is continuing to neglect the job of Supervisor that she was (barely) elected to do.
Chan, unfortunately, is currently the D1 Supervisor –which is the district I live in — and I can personally attest to the fact that she hasn’t done squat; she’s been spectacularly lame.
The single affordable housing development constructed in D1 during her entire tenure was only possible due to the pro-housing law, SB-35, that Scott Wiener authored and got passed into law — a law that Chan opposed and continues to oppose.
Yes but that is not how Washington works though, you’re decribing the role of a City or State elected representative. There is an omnibus spending bill annually and very little else. Washington doesn’t “pass bills” anymore and the sooner we dissuade oursleves of this naïveté instilled form a 50 yo Schoolhouse Rock cartoon the sooner we can have adult discussion about what we need in a house Rep.