SAN FRANCISCO — Establishment Democrats in San Francisco are scrambling to bury Saikat Chakrabarti in the race to succeed Nancy Pelosi, suddenly viewing the progressive organizer as a credible competitor.
Chakrabarti, a centimillionaire and former founding engineer at Stripe, has emerged as a top contender in the race after spending millions of his own wealth and, beyond that, with his strategy — not unlike Zohran Mamdani in New York — of tapping into populist energy on the left.
Now Chakrabarti appears to be such a force he’s spooked his rivals and their backers in San Francisco, and they are waking up to the fact they have to hit him. Longtime powerbrokers in the city, including moderates and some progressive Democrats, are working to paint Chakrabarti as more of a carpetbagger than a transformative leftist…