Would-be Pelosi successors debate who’s more progressive in San Francisco congressional race

Nancy Pelosi’s possible successors are bending over backwards to prove they’ll protect voters from the potential harms of San Francisco’s most lucrative industry: artificial intelligence.

In a televised debate Thursday night just days before ballots go out to voters, state Sen. Scott Wiener and San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, both liberal Democrats, found common ground on at least one point: AI companies shouldn’t be left to regulate themselves, pushing back on a recent suggestion from President Donald Trump.

That’s about as much agreement as they could muster, though, before taking jabs at one another and making a case for why they are the more trustworthy candidate on AI safety.

Wiener touted his experience passing the nation’s first AI safety law in 2025, a yearslong process that resulted in a compromise with Gov. Gavin Newsom, who vetoed a tougher proposal from Wiener the year before but has now adopted many of its tenets. Wiener said his law has been “copied and pasted” by several other states and chided Chan for her lack of a track record with regulating the AI industry.

“It’s very easy, when you’ve never lifted a finger for AI safety regulation, to armchair quarterback it,” Wiener said.

Chan disputed Wiener’s accusation that she hasn’t worked on AI legislation by pointing to a 2024 law that banned landlords from using AI to set rent prices. The measure, authored by then-Supervisor Aaron Peskin, Chan’s former boss and mentor, has failed to produce any enforcement as of August. 

She repeatedly tried to paint Wiener as beholden to San Francisco’s wealthy tech and AI industries, making broad unsubstantiated allegations that his campaign was “bankrolled” by the companies he purported to regulate. She called his AI legislation, Senate Bill 53, “watered-down.” 

“That’s politics,” Wiener replied. “I’m proud of the work that we’ve done, and I will take that work to Congress.”

Changing of the guard

For the first time in more than 40 years, San Franciscans face an actual choice over who should represent them in Washington, D.C.: Wiener, who has made national headlines for his work on housing policy and captured a resounding endorsement from The San Francisco Chronicle, or Chan, an ardent tenants’ rights supporter who has the endorsement of Pelosi and support from her political empire.

Wiener handily won the June top-two primary with more than 40% of the vote and has maintained a comfortable lead. Chan, who represents the West side Richmond neighborhood, won just under 30%, edging out progressive Saikat Chakrabarti.

The approximately 30% of voters who supported someone other than Wiener or Chan in the primary — plus any general election voters who didn’t participate — will be crucial to determining who emerges on Nov. 3. 

But although both candidates have pitched themselves as bulwarks against Trump, and either would be among Congress’s most left-leaning lawmakers, they diverge on several top issues that could be key to wooing those uncommitted voters. That includes the exorbitant cost of housing in the city, reevaluating the United States’ relationship with Israel, and what to do about AI.

Chan on Thursday did not offer specifics on how she would regulate AI, but called for a moratorium on data centers and restricting the development of a “superintelligence,” or an AI that surpasses the level of human intelligence. She said workers whose livelihoods are threatened by the technology need to be part of any negotiation over the future of AI and recalled a group of nurses who told her the AI notetakers they were required to use were monitoring their emotional relatability and vocal intonation with patients.

“That is just simply surveillance of an employee and a worker, not providing better patient care,” Chan said. “Unions need to be at the table to regulate this technology.”

Amid the back-and-forth, Wiener took the unusual step of apologizing onstage for his campaign’s “terrible mistake” of launching an AI chatbot that mimicked Chan and highlighted her record of opposing housing construction and other urban development as supervisor. 

“Supervisor, I want to directly apologize to you for that chatbot,” Wiener said. “It was a terrible mistake, which is why we took it down and why I apologize. I take full responsibility for that.”

Chan, who is frequently criticized as a NIMBY for her reluctance to support housing construction, was taken to task by the moderators Thursday over the lack of housing built in her district.

“Since you took office in 2021, fewer new homes have been approved in your Richmond supervisorial district than any other supervisorial district in San Francisco,” said moderator Scott Shafer of KQED. “Given the shortage and the cost of housing here, how do you explain that to voters?” 

Chan pointed to housing that has been built citywide, saying “we need to build housing and we need to build housing that people can afford,” citing her support for rental subsidies, but did not directly respond. 

Still, the liberal candidates do have points of agreement. They both support universal healthcare coverage. Both called the humanitarian crisis in Gaza a “genocide,” although critics have questioned whether Wiener genuinely had a change of heart or adopted the phrase for political gain under pressure. Both agreed they would not support sending American troops to Taiwan if China launched a military attack. 

Each tried to one-up the other on who is the better friend to labor. 

Chan boasts endorsements from the powerful California Labor Federation and SEIU California.

Wiener pointed to his endorsement from activist Dolores Huerta and his efforts to include labor standards in all of his housing bills.

And while Pelosi has loomed large over the campaign, Chan did not mention her endorsement Thursday.