Saikat Chakrabarti isn’t only endorsing San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan for the House seat vacated by Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, he’s turning his former campaign apparatus into an independent expenditure campaign, dubbed San Francisco Solidarity, on her behalf.
That support could be significant as Chakrabarti spent close to $10 million on his campaign and is tapped into national progressive fundraising sources.
Initially, Chakrabarti’s support includes transforming his 200-person staff, which includes paid canvassers, into a force for Chan, who likely will be vastly outspent by her rival, state Sen. Scott Wiener, and independent committees working on his behalf, as she was in the June 2 primary race.
How much, though, the centimillionaire Chakrabarti will contribute to Chan is yet to be determined, said spokesperson Nate Allbee. He will also be raising money for her.
SF Solidarity showed $384,880 cash on hand Monday, according to federal campaign contribution disclosures. Chakrabarti, an early employee of Stripe, is worth more than $160 million.
“The goal is to elect Connie, so he will be doing what he needs to do,” Allbee said.
Chakrabarti canvassers will ask his 41,990 supporters in the district to support Chan. Then they will reach out to roughly 125,000 Democrats and independent voters in the district who did not vote and ask them to do the same, Allbee said.
Wiener won the primary with 41% of the vote, followed by Chan with 30% and Chakrabarti with 18%.
On Sunday, Chakrabarti formerly announced that he would endorse Chan in a social media video, saying that they shared an interest in removing the role of corporate influence in the Democratic Party, which was one of Chakrabarti’s top priorities in his campaign.
“You are the only candidate now who doesn’t take any corporate money,” Chakrabarti said in the video. “You support a wealth tax on the ultra rich, and you’ve been really clear that you’re going to stop sending endless bombs abroad, spending billions on wars and on genocides, instead invest that back home here in housing, health care, and education.”