After years of speculation, California state Sen. Scott Wiener announced Wednesday that he was running to replace Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who has yet to say whether she will run again in 2026 for the congressional district representing San Francisco.

For years, Wiener had deflected rumors about his aspirations for higher office, saying he wanted to respect Pelosi’s wishes, even as he amassed a war chest behind the scenes and Democrats faced intraparty debates about challenging older incumbents. Pelosi spokesperson Ian Krager said in an email she would announce her decision after the Nov. 4 special election as she campaigns for voters to pass Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Proposition 50 initiative to redraw congressional districts.

In a video, Wiener said he was running to “protect” San Francisco as the White House prepares to flood the city with federal troops following President Donald Trump’s previous pledge to send the military to liberal cities like Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles. His video interspersed images of him walking the city with footage of immigration officials arresting people and cited his recent legislation banning federal law enforcement from masking their identities in California and greenlighting denser housing near transit hubs.

“My family escaped fascism in Europe. I never thought the United States would slip into fascism like we’re seeing today,” Wiener said, referring to his Jewish roots. “With everything I have, I stood up to violence and hate my entire life. Trump and his MAGA extremists don’t scare me. They won’t stop me or the people of our great city from fighting back and doing what’s right in Congress.”

Wiener, a suburban Philadelphia native, first moved to San Francisco in 1997, where he worked for the city attorney’s office and served on the Democratic County Central Committee. In 2010, he was elected to represent the Castro and Noe Valley on the Board of Supervisors before joining the state Senate in 2016. Since coming to Sacramento, he has branded himself a staunch housing and public transit advocate who is unafraid to brawl with the right over defending immigrants and trans people, or the left over his support for Israel.

In an interview with The Sacramento Bee, he praised Pelosi, saying she had “moved mountains for San Francisco” since her first election in 1987 but that he had chosen to jump in the race as a filing deadline loomed and the city braced for a potential Pentagon deployment.

“We are in a very intense period for San Francisco,” he said. Despite Pelosi’s stepping down from the speaker’s role in 2022, she remains one of the most powerful Democrats in politics. Wiener said he was undaunted at potentially replacing a political heavyweight.

“I think I have a track record of being able to get things done and deliver. So I’m not coming out of nowhere,” he said. “When I went to the Board of Supervisors, when I went to the state Senate, I was new, and I very quickly learned the institutions and learned how to get things done, and I’ll do that in Congress as well.”

Saikat Chakrabarti, a 39-year-old former tech executive and former adviser to New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is also running for the seat. Earlier this month, he called upon supporters to help him unseat Pelosi, 85, saying it was time for the Democratic Party to embrace “transformational change.”

Wiener, 55, pointed out Chakrabarti’s wealth and relative anonymity in San Francisco politics: “It’s sort of interesting to pitch yourself as the anti-establishment change agent when you’re worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Chakrabarti’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

_____

©2025 The Sacramento Bee. Visit sacbee.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.