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On Saturday, May 17, Rep. Nancy Pelosi called Supervisor Connie Chan and told her to show up at a Mission District video studio on Monday. She didn’t say why. Chan arrived, sat down next to the speaker emerita, and watched her begin reading from a teleprompter. “I have been watching this race closely with all of you — and I believe one candidate stands above the rest.”
To those who’ve known Chan for years, including this reporter, the video itself tells the tale: the surprise and delight on Chan’s face is genuine.
Pelosi’s endorsement wasn’t on the books for weeks or months, nor a plan hatched at Chan’s campaign launch. Instead, Chan learned of the influential, potentially campaign-shifting endorsement just one day before it was announced.
While the timing took the candidate and the political establishment by surprise, it is not a surprise that Chan was Pelosi’s pick. The speaker emerita’s disdain for the other candidates, state Sen. Scott Wiener and congressional staffer Saikat Chakrabarti, is not exactly a secret.
That doesn’t mean Pelosi’s endorsement was a foregone conclusion.
Chan announced her run in November, and months flew by with nary a peep from Pelosi. In April, Chan’s allies in Washington D.C. hosted a fundraiser for the congressional candidate, which Pelosi attended. All Chan got out of it, at the time, was a photo with her.
It was a disappointment to Chan’s supporters — even congressional interns get that much.
But behind the scenes, Pelosi was quietly assessing Chan’s campaign. Insiders tell Power Play that the speaker emerita spoke to key allies in labor and among San Francisco politicos, feeling out the strategic moment to strike.
“A lot of people were lobbying for it,” said Kim Tavaglione, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council. “People were saying, ‘just make the endorsement already.’”
Insiders speculate the most convincing argument was Chan’s momentum (opens in new tab). While an early April poll painted her as lagging in third, successive polls later in the month showed Chan neck-and-neck with Chakrabarti. She was bouncing back, and the time was ripe for a nudge.
The day Pelosi and Chan shot the endorsement video, a flurry of calls followed, rallying Chan’s supporters to quickly meet at In Chan Kaajal Park to shoot the commercial’s B-roll. The next day, the ad hit the stream.
If Chan succeeds in clinching the primary, it’ll be remembered as the moment her win over Chakrabarti crystallized. And no one saw it coming, not even Chan herself. — Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez
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DON’T TALK: Prosecutors in Yolo County pursuing murder charges against a San Francisco-based fireworks company are seeking a gag order in response to comments made by the defendants’ attorneys to The Standard in a story this month.
In April, five people linked to an illegal fireworks warehouse were indicted by a grand jury on murder and felony conspiracy charges after a 2025 explosion that killed seven employees. Yolo County Supervising Deputy District Attorney Deanna Hays filed a motion Tuesday that bolsters a previous request for a pretrial publicity protective order by Judge Daniel P. Maguire.
“[O]n May 15, 2026, an article published in the online news publication The San Francisco Standard included examples of such extrajudicial public statements by counsel for two defendants in this matter,” wrote Hays. “Counsel’s quoted comments appear to mischaracterize the prosecution and the law, inaccurately characterizing the charges as based on a felony murder theory. I believe such statements risk prejudicing the adjudicative proceeding by sowing misunderstanding and publicizing mischaracterizations of the prosecution and relevant law.”
The article Hays references raises questions about the prosecution’s charges in light of a May 4 ruling from the California Supreme Court, which tightens (opens in new tab) the rules around who can be found responsible for murder. Lawyers for the defendants in the case are arguing that the ruling changes how their clients can be charged, since the owners of the fireworks company, Devastating Pyrotechnics, were not on-site when the July 1, 2025, explosion south of Yolo County’s town of Esparto.
“Morris is an earth-shattering case,” said Robert Gorman, who is representing one defendant, in the May 15 Standard story. “The only way our guys can be convicted of murder, in my analysis of [the court’s decision in] Morris, is if my client is in that yard helping put together fireworks when the explosion occurred, and my guy survived.”
Douglas Horngrad, another defense attorney in the case, told The Standard, “This ruling supports the defense’s position … that there is an insufficient showing to support a felony murder charge.”
The Yolo County District Attorney declined to comment, and Gorman and Horngrad did not respond to a request for comment. A hearing on the gag order is set for June 4. — Gabriel Greschler
FUN ATTACK: An outside spending group supporting Chan in the congressional race is adding some fun to its political attacks. The union-funded Working Families for San Francisco, a super PAC, has launched a new website called “Truth About Saikat (opens in new tab),” targeting Chakrabarti. On the site, it has unveiled a memory game built around 20 controversial issues tied to Chakrabarti.
To play: 40 folders are laid face-down on the board. Flip two at a time — if they match, the pair is eliminated; if they don’t, they flip back face-down. The catch is you have to remember what you’ve seen.
All the cards reference controversies surrounding the candidate, including his lack of local ties and endorsements, his Maryland property, self-funding his campaign, and his touting of connections with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, neither of whom has endorsed him.
Chakrabarti’s campaign described the attack as a desperate waste of money by the PAC.
On Friday, Chakrabarti also announced he had secured two endorsements from progressive “Squad” members in Congress — Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. — Han Li
HAWAII FIVE-0: Bay Area tech barons have been snapping up prime real estate in Hawaii — and now they may have helped install a friendly face to run its biggest police force, insiders told Power Play. David Lazar, recently retired from SFPD, was named May 20 to lead the Honolulu Police Department.
Lazar, who left the department in May 2025 after losing his bid to become chief, had most recently sought to lead the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office. He also had ambitions to become SF’s chief, but instead was named on May 20 to lead Hawaii’s largest urban police force in Honolulu.
But he’s already unpopular among the rank and file of his new department. A poll of department officers backed the insider, former HPD Major Mike Lambert, by 90%. The next competitor, former lieutenant colonel from the New Jersey State Police Department, Scott Ebner, got 3%. Lazar came in last with only 2% of officers backing his candidacy.
MONEY TALKS: California billionaires are mobilizing against a proposed one-time 5% tax on their wealth. The Pelosi vacancy is drawing large sums into a San Francisco race. And the governor’s race has attracted significant sums from monied interests across the state; from labor to tech, and from billionaires to small donations.
We’re getting into all of it on May 27 at Manny’s, where “Pacific Standard Time” podcast host Emily Dreyfuss sits down with The Standard’s wealth and power reporter Emily Shugerman and senior politics reporter Hannah Wiley to unpack the mega-donors, nebulously-named PACs, and power brokers quietly shaping what and who ends up on your ballot — and even how you might vote.
And Keally McBride, a University of San Francisco politics professor, will explain the broader patterns here and what academic research tells us about how money and big spending actually shape election outcomes.
With the primary just one week away, there’s no better time to understand the wealth, power, and influence behind the names and campaigns on your ballot. Buy tickets here (opens in new tab).
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