As candidates vie for Nancy Pelosi’s influential endorsement in the race to succeed her as representative, they might want to temper their expectations.
The esteemed congresswoman from San Francisco, who has served for four decades, seems unlikely to back any of the leading contenders in the upcoming June primary. These candidates include state Senator Scott Wiener, city Supervisor Connie Chan, and progressive entrepreneur Saikat Chakrabarti.
While Pelosi has not explicitly stated her reasons for abstaining from the endorsement process, her office has declined to comment on the matter. However, she did mention to a reporter last year that endorsing a candidate was “not my current plan.”
Chan, a labor-backed Democrat who met with Pelosi in the speaker emerita’s Washington, D.C. office last month, seemed like the most obvious match for an endorsement, and she lamented the lack of a blessing in a recent interview with the San Francisco Standard.
“I certainly was hoping for that,” Chan said. “If I didn’t say, ‘Yes, I was hoping for the endorsement,’ then you’d be like, ‘Clearly she’s not being honest.’”
The honest assessment among political insiders in San Francisco is that Chan hasn’t done enough to earn the endorsement, as paltry fundraising numbers — less than $460,000 raised by the end of March — would make it nearly impossible to compete.
David Latterman, a political analyst in San Francisco, told The Post that the lack of money makes Chan a “non-factor,” while Wiener’s decision to launch an exploratory committee in 2023 started the clock on Pelosi’s retirement.
In November, she formally announced her decision to leave office at the end of her current term.
“Clearly, Pelosi is not happy about how any of this has turned out,” Latterman said.
“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?”
Polling released by Wiener’s campaign Friday showed the lanky legislator — he’s 6-foot-7 — holds a commanding lead with 40% support, while Chakrabarti and Chan were neck and neck with 18% and 17%, respectively.
Chakrabarti, who’s been shunned by his old boss Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has spent almost $5 million of his own money to build name ID and throw expletive-laden rallies with Marxist influencer Hasan Piker.
After heavy criticism from Chakrabarti, particularly around her age (Pelosi is now 86), the speaker emerita would sooner endorse a case of hantavirus.
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Jason McDaniel, a political science professor at San Francisco State University, said it’s difficult to say what exactly has kept Pelosi at bay in endorsing a successor.
“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,” McDaniel said.
“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.”
Wiener, who has hauled in more than $3.5 million total, has much of the local Democratic Party’s institutional support after serving as a supervisor and currently holding an influential role in the state Senate.
It’s possible Pelosi will come around to endorse him when it’s all said and done, although some mending of fences may need to occur.
“I think she does perceive that Scott accelerated her exit, whether that’s true or not,” Latterman said.
One risk in endorsing now, political insiders noted, is that Pelosi’s backing would lose some clout if she were to support Chan and the supervisor didn’t make it to the runoff.
“If Pelosi endorses Chan now, and she comes in a distant third, then where is she? She is marginalized on this,” Latterman said.
“Saikat and Scott won’t have to listen to what she has to say on anything. Whatever pull Pelosi has would be completely negated.”
For a legendary dealmaker among Democrats — and a reviled foe of Republicans — Pelosi still has seven months in office. Even if she remains above the fray for the time being, she’ll have time to make one final play.
After that she’ll have time to pursue other passions, like the stock market.
A spokesperson for Pelosi told The Post that “she does not own any stocks, and she has no prior knowledge or subsequent involvement in any transactions.”
