Here's why gay California lawmaker Scott Wiener is running for Nancy Pelosi's U.S. House seat

It’s official — Scott Wiener, a gay state senator in California, is running for the U.S. House seat long held by LGBTQ+ ally Nancy Pelosi.

It was reported last week that Wiener was preparing for a run in 2026, and he announced his candidacy Wednesday. Both he and Pelosi are Democrats in a heavily Democratic district in San Francisco, and under California’s system, the top two vote recipients in a primary election face each other in the general election, regardless of party. Pelosi, who is 85 and has held the seat since 1987, hasn’t said if she’ll run again.

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“My family escaped fascism in Europe,” Wiener, 55, said in a video announcement. “I never thought the United States would slip into fascism like we’re seeing today.” Photos of Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and JD Vance accompanied his words.

“San Francisco has always been on the right side of history, standing up for civil rights and democracy even when it’s hard,” he continued, over pictures of Harvey Milk and an LGBTQ+ rights march.

He said he would fight for affordable housing, the Constitution, and LGBTQ+ youth and their families, and to hold insurance companies accountable.

He had previously said he didn’t intend to run against Pelosi, but that “wasn’t a promise,” he told SFGate. He recently spoke to her, but he wouldn’t say what they talked about.

“The world has changed,” Wiener said to the site. “We’ve seen the rise of an authoritarian regime, in addition to all the other challenges we have as a nation around housing and health care.” San Francisco needs “forward-looking leadership, and I’ve shown that I can deliver on these issues,” he added.

“This really isn’t about Nancy Pelosi,” Wiener told San Francisco public broadcaster KQED. “Nancy Pelosi has moved mountains for the country and for San Francisco, and I think the world of her. She’s not said whether she’s running again, and we’re now to the point where we’re just a few months out from the filing deadline. And so it was time to enter the race.”

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Wiener, having grown up in New Jersey, moved to San Francisco in the 1990s after finishing law school. He was elected to the California Senate in 2016 and before that was a member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors — its city council — representing Milk’s district.

Speaking to The New York Times, Wiener praised Pelosi, the first woman to be House speaker, and he wouldn’t say if he thinks she’s too old to continue in Congress. He did, however, lambaste Saikat Chakrabarti, “a wealthy, progressive firebrand who filed to run for the seat in February,” the Times reports. Chakrabarti, a 39-year-old tech millionaire, was U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s first chief of staff, after having helped elect her.

“He has so little connection to San Francisco and really never did anything in San Francisco before he started running for Congress,” Wiener said of Chakrabarti. “He is trying to buy the seat.” Wiener framed his candidacy as a way to stop Chakrabarti.

Chakrabarti told the Times he’d lived in San Francisco since 2009 and that his experience as a congressional aide would help him do the job in Congress.

Ian Krager, a spokesman for Pelosi, declined to comment on her plans or on Wiener’s entry into the race. He said Pelosi is completely focused on passing Proposition 50, a ballot measure that would redraw California’s congressional districts. Pelosi herself told the San Francisco Examiner, “I won’t make any announcement until we get through November 4,” when the measure comes to a vote. “That is everything to us.”

Her daughter Christine Pelosi has been mentioned as a potential successor, but the younger Pelosi has said she too is laser-focused on the proposition.

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Wiener, known for his appearances in revealing outfits at San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair, an event for the kink and leather communities, “said he would not stop living authentically if he were elected to Congress,” the Times reports. “I’m going to be me,” he noted.