The Bay Area’s Hotly Contested Congressional Races

SPEAKER_2 (0:03)

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Alexis Madrigal (0:23)

Welcome to Forum, I'm Alexis Madrigal.

A month out from the midterms, looks like a Democrat could win for Senate in Texas, North Carolina, Iowa, Georgia. Poll after poll shows an unpopular president dragging down the Republican Party across the country. Nobody knows how big the blue wave will be, but it's looking pretty big.

Locally, many congressional races pit Democrats against Democrats, sometimes in districts that have been transformed by Prop 50 redistricting. Will the blue wave push our congressional delegation to the left? The highest profile contest is the race to represent San Francisco, almost all of it at least, replacing the legendary Nancy Pelosi. But there are other interesting races in the East Bay, in the North Bay, up towards Sacramento. We're going to cover them all. Here to talk with us, we've got some folks from KQED's politics team. Scott Schaeffer, of course, KQED's senior politics correspondent, co-host of Political Breakdown, and of course has a new podcast series about Nancy Pelosi called The Speaker. I think episode four dropped today, Scott. That's right, yeah.

Scott Schaefer (1:24)

Get it wherever you get your podcast. Yes, that's right.

Alexis Madrigal (1:26)

Thanks for joining us. We've also got Guy Marzorotti, correspondent on KQED's politics and government desk. Thank you.

Guy Marzorotti (1:32)

Hey, good morning.

Alexis Madrigal (1:34)

So Scott, you were one of the moderators of last week's debate at KQED between supervisor Connie Chan, Senator State, Senator Scott Weiner. What can you tell us about the two candidates, core components? What's kind of the texture and landscape of this campaign?

Scott Schaefer (1:48)

Well, I think underlying all of it is Nancy Pelosi. She has a big shadow. And when she endorsed Connie Chan just before the primary, it boosted Connie Chan into second place. And both she and the third place finisher, Shoykat Chakrabarti, are really stepping on the gas pedal to try to get Chan to win the seat.

It's a bit of an uphill battle because Scott Weiner has been around for a long time. He was on the board of supervisors. He was in the state senate. He's been a very prolific lawmaker. He's sort of led the charge on housing issues ranging from taking on Trump over ICE, mask gang, other things like that, as well as AI regulation. Connie Chan, more progressive, close with labor.

It has been a representative of her district, the Richmond, in ways that don't necessarily help her citywide, for example, posing closure of the Great Highway to make way for Sunset Dunes Park, a very popular inner district, maybe less so citywide in this congressional district. But these are two very distinctive people and personalities. They both have interesting biographies. Connie Chan came to the US when she was young from China. Scott Weiner, openly gay, came from the East Coast. So I think their differences over issues are, I think in all these races we're gonna talk about, how these folks are gonna vote, if they, whoever wins and goes back to DC among the Democrats, they're gonna vote the same way the vast majority of time. I think for me, as a vote and as voters evaluate this race, it's who will be the most effective, who is gonna go back there and get things done, who's gonna represent our values, who can build coalitions. And I think, you know, that's really something that voters are grappling with.

Alexis Madrigal (3:30)

I mean, in this one, it feels like there is a pretty clear choice, at least around housing stuff, right? I mean, Scott Weiner being known as like kind of the most yimby guy in the state of California, perhaps. And Connie Chan, definitely not in that same camp.

Scott Schaefer (3:43)

Absolutely. I mean, I know Scott Weiner has not just championed more housing, but has been relentless. If a bill failed, he went back and talked to the people who voted against it, talked to the governor. He did that with AI as well.

And so there is now evidence that there, some evidence that the legislation that he's gotten through and signed is having an impact. There's more housing being built. The thing is though, there is also, that can be a polarizing issue. People can say, oh yes, we need to build more housing, but not in my backyard. That's the whole nimby thing.

Sunil (4:15)

That's the phrase comes from.