Scott Wiener, the California state senator, is expected to run for the San Francisco congressional district long held by Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, as young Democrats across the country are pushing for generational change.
Pelosi, 85, the first woman to serve as speaker of the House, stepped aside as the Democratic leader in 2022 but has not yet said whether she intends to seek a 21st term next year for the seat she has held since 1987. The San Francisco Standard first reported that the 55-year-old Wiener, a prominent San Francisco Democrat who had been waiting for Pelosi to retire to run for the seat, would announce his candidacy in the coming weeks.
A spokesperson for Wiener declined to comment.
In a statement, Ian Krager, a spokesperson for Pelosi said the former speaker was “fully focused” on California’s Prop 50 ballot measure that would redraw the state’s congressional boundaries to boost Democrats and counter a Republican gerrymander sought by Donald Trump in Texas.
“She urges all Californians to join in that mission on the path to taking back the House for the Democrats,” he said.
A Harvard Law School-educated attorney and prolific lawmaker in Sacramento, Wiener has long had his eye on Pelosi’s seat. In 2023, he formed an exploratory committee that has already raised $1m for a future congressional run, but had previously insisted that he would only do so if Pelosi decided to step down.
Known for championing legislation on housing density, LGBTQ+ rights, tech regulation and climate action, Wiener won a signature victory this session when Gavin Newsom signed into law a Yimby-backed bill he authored to boost housing in the state. He currently chairs the powerful Senate Budget Committee.
Several Democrats are already running for the seat, including the progressive Saikat Chakrabarti, the 39-year-old former tech executive who served as the first chief of staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congressperson. Earlier this month, Chakrabarti drew hundreds of people to a rally in San Francisco’s Mission District, where he formally launched his campaign.
In a statement, Chakrabarti said Democrats needed a “new kind of leader who is not a part of the establishment, because the establishment has failed us”.
The challenge comes as the Democratic party faces growing calls for change from a younger generation demanding a new approach to take on Donald Trump in his second term. New faces are stepping forward, from New York, where progressive star Zohran Mamdani, is on the verge of becoming the city’s youngest mayor in a century, to Memphis, where one of the Tennessee Three is taking on a long-serving House Democrat.
