Nancy Pelosi represented San Francisco in Congress for four decades, served twice as House speaker, and built one of the most formidable political machines in modern Democratic Party history. Now, as a June primary approaches to choose her successor, the 86-year-old speaker emerita appears determined to sit on the sidelines, and the candidates vying for her seat are not taking it well.
Pelosi told a reporter late last year that endorsing in the race was "not my current plan." Months later, nothing has changed. The New York Post reported that Pelosi shows no intention of supporting any of the three top contenders, state Sen. Scott Wiener, city Supervisor Connie Chan, or progressive centimillionaire Saikat Chakrabarti, even as the primary draws near.
For a politician who spent decades consolidating power and handpicking allies, the silence is striking. It also tells a story about a Democratic establishment that, behind the scenes, may not be nearly as unified as it pretends.
The trouble, according to San Francisco political analyst David Latterman, began in 2023 when Wiener launched an exploratory committee for the seat. That move, Latterman told The Post, effectively started the clock on Pelosi's retirement, whether she was ready or not.
"I think she does perceive that Scott accelerated her exit, whether that's true or not."
Pelosi formally announced in November that she would leave office at the end of her current term. She still has seven months left. But the race to replace her is already well underway, and none of the front-runners appear to have earned her blessing.
Wiener, a towering figure in San Francisco politics, literally, at 6-foot-7, holds much of the local Democratic Party's institutional support. Polling released by his campaign on Friday showed him at 40 percent, more than double his nearest competitors. Chakrabarti trailed at 18 percent, with Chan at 17 percent. Wiener has raised more than $3.5 million total.
Chakrabarti, a former chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has poured almost $5 million of his own money into the race. He has also, according to the Post's account, drawn criticism for past remarks about Pelosi, particularly around her age. That kind of offense is not easily forgiven in Pelosi's orbit.
Then there is Chan, a labor-backed Democrat who seemed, on paper, like the most natural fit for a Pelosi endorsement. She met with Pelosi in the speaker emerita's Washington, D.C., office last month. She left without a commitment.
In a recent interview with the San Francisco Standard, Chan did not hide her disappointment. She acknowledged openly that she had hoped for the endorsement:
"I certainly was hoping for that. If I didn't say, 'Yes, I was hoping for the endorsement,' then you'd be like, 'Clearly she's not being honest.'"
Honest she may have been, but it didn't help. By the end of March, Chan had raised less than $460,000, a fraction of what Wiener and Chakrabarti have spent. Latterman was blunt, calling her a "non-factor" in the race given her fundraising deficit.
That financial gap may be the very reason Pelosi has held back. Latterman laid out the political math plainly:
"If Pelosi endorses Chan now, and she comes in a distant third, then where is she? She is marginalized on this. Saikat and Scott won't have to listen to what she has to say on anything. Whatever pull Pelosi has would be completely negated."
In other words, backing a loser would cost Pelosi the one thing she has spent a lifetime accumulating: leverage.
Pelosi's refusal to pick a side is not entirely out of character. She has a long record of calculating when to engage and when to hold back. Her recent political maneuvering has included distancing herself from fellow California Democrat Eric Swalwell amid mounting accusations against him, a reminder that Pelosi protects her brand above all.
Jason McDaniel, a political science professor at San Francisco State University, offered a more charitable reading of her restraint:
"It may be based on a sense of fairness, wanting to avoid putting her thumb on the scale in a way that would amount to choosing her successor."
But McDaniel himself didn't seem fully convinced by that explanation. He added a sharper assessment:
"But as much as I think that may be the reason, it seems more likely that she doesn't feel that any of the candidates are worthy of her endorsement."
That framing, none of them are good enough, fits a broader pattern. Pelosi has spent her career surrounded by people who meet her standards or get pushed aside. A field she didn't cultivate, triggered by a timeline she didn't set, leaves her without a candidate she can fully own.
The irony here runs deeper than one San Francisco congressional race. After the 2024 presidential election, Pelosi publicly lamented that Democrats had not held a real open primary once President Biden stepped aside. She told the New York Times that the outcome "would have been different" if Biden had exited sooner, arguing that his immediate endorsement of Kamala Harris "made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time."
Pelosi, in other words, criticized the very dynamic she now embodies in miniature: a powerful figure who could shape the field but chooses not to, or cannot, without risking her own standing. The woman who wanted an open primary nationally now presides over an open primary locally and finds it unsatisfying.
The broader turmoil within House Democratic ranks only compounds the picture. Party leaders are navigating scandal, internal division, and a fundraising environment where self-funding progressives like Chakrabarti can muscle their way into competitive races without institutional approval.
Latterman summed up the mood around the race with a single observation:
"Clearly, Pelosi is not happy about how any of this has turned out."
And that unhappiness has real consequences. For Chan, the lack of a Pelosi nod means running without the most powerful validator in San Francisco Democratic politics, and doing it on a shoestring budget against two far better-funded opponents. For Wiener, it means winning the seat without the outgoing incumbent's stamp, which may limit his ability to tap into Pelosi's donor network and institutional relationships. For Chakrabarti, who reportedly criticized Pelosi and has been shunned by his old boss Ocasio-Cortez, the silence is just one more establishment door closed.
A Pelosi spokesperson told The Post that "she does not own any stocks, and she has no prior knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions", a statement that appeared to address separate financial questions rather than the endorsement issue, but which underscored how carefully Pelosi's team manages her public posture.
The broader question for Democrats is whether Pelosi's reluctance reflects wisdom or weakness. A party that has struggled with internal accountability on multiple fronts now watches its most iconic House leader decline to shape her own succession. That is not a sign of a confident institution.
Latterman posed the sharpest question in the entire race, one that cuts through the polite speculation about fairness and timing:
"There's no question why Pelosi is not going to endorse Connie today. The real question is: why didn't Pelosi endorse her months ago?"
If Chan was ever the right pick, Pelosi waited too long. If none of them were the right pick, Pelosi failed to recruit someone who was. Either way, the woman who once commanded Democratic House politics with an iron grip now watches her own district slip out of her hands.
She has seven months left in office. The June primary will proceed without her fingerprints on it. And whoever wins will owe Nancy Pelosi nothing at all.
For four decades, Pelosi made sure every Democrat in San Francisco owed her something. The fact that her successor won't is the clearest sign yet that the Pelosi era is already over, even if she hasn't left the building.
