State Senator Scott Wiener confirmed the news that was leaked last week that he will run for Nancy Pelosi's seat in the US House of Representatives, regardless of whether Pelosi plans to retire.

Scott Wiener may have reason to believe that House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who has represented San Francisco in Congress for nearly 40 years, is already planning to announce her retirement. Or he may just be stepping out ahead of her due to his own political calculus — an independently wealthy upstart with more progressive cred than him has already jumped in the race, and Wiener can't afford to be deferential to Pelosi much longer, lest a competitor grab all the early attention.

"The world changes,” Wiener says in an interview with the New York Times' Heather Knight. "I made a decision that it makes sense for me to get into the race now because I’m passionate about San Francisco having the best possible representation."

Wiener first made his potential candidacy for Congress known in 2023, though he pledged at the time to wait for Pelosi's retirement.

Knight notes that Wiener declined to answer most questions about Pelosi, who he has long expressed respect for, and would not say whether he had already spoken to her personally about his decision to announce. Also, he would not comment on whether the 85-year-old Pelosi is too old for another run.

We already learned last week that Wiener was likely making such a move — and maybe even leaked the news himself to the SF Standard in order to give Pelosi fair warning.

The headline over the weekend from a columnist at the LA Times was "Is Pelosi Getting Bidened?", with Anita Chabria writing that Wiener's decision not to wait his turn any longer had "shocked even those deep in the dog-eat-dog world of S.F. politics" — given the irony that Pelosi, just a year ago, had been instrumental in getting Joe Biden to step aside due to his own age.

But it actually doesn't seem so shocking. And given Wiener's extended wait to make his first Washington run, and Pelosi's apparent intention to keep us guessing until after this November's election — her spokespeople insist she's fully focused for the moment on getting Prop 50 passed — it's hard to blame him.

"He deferred and demurred a long, long time, and I think it got to the point where that was no longer politically sustainable," says SF political consultant Erica Jaye, speaking to the Times.

The major motivating factor here, according to last week's report, is the newly announced candidacy of 39-year-old Saikat Chakrabarti — a former chief of staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who could potentially paint himself as being cut from the same cloth as popular Democratic Socialist candidate for NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Wiener has come out of the gate positioning himself as far more deeply tied to local politics and committed to San Francisco as a place — given that Chakrabarti moved here for a tech job and, as Wiener puts it to the Times, "He has so little connection to San Francisco and really never did anything in San Francisco before he started running for Congress. He's trying to buy the seat."

And, as Wiener tells the Chronicle, regarding his own experience, "It’s not just enough to break glass. You have know how to get it done. And work with people you don’t always agree with. You have to challenge the establishment."

Assuming Pelosi does bow out of the race, which may be a large assumption, this could become a familiar-for-San Francisco race of moderate v. progressive in which Wiener will continue to tout his experience and Chakrabarti will position himself as further to the left, and the candidate for "transformational change," as he has already said.

Wiener may have a leg up among LGTBQ voters in San Francisco, given that he has been a strong advocate for LGBTQ issues in his California political career — but more progressive queer voters may still see him as too aligned with YIMBY moderates for their taste.

The LA Times today notes that the emergence of both Wiener and Chakrabarti as primary challengers to the all-powerful Pelosi is "a prominent example of a generational reckoning underway in the Democratic Party."

And then there is the Christine Pelosi factor, with the elder Pelosi likely to endorse her own daughter if she also plans to run for the seat, as has been long rumored she would.

The candidates, only two of whom are now known, will face each other in a primary in June.

Previously: Scott Wiener Reportedly Plans to Run In Primary for SF's Congressional Seat, Whether Pelosi Retires or Not

Top image: Senator Scott Wiener speaks during the CDP State Convention - Tax Fairness for All Families on May 31, 2025 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by John Sciulli/Getty Images for Economic Security Project, Inc.)