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The Cautionary Tale of Saikat Chakrabarti
The campaign did not turn out as hoped for the individual who helped catapult Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez into Congress and co-founded Justice Democrats.
Jun 09, 2026
As those active in the field will often say, politics is a tough business – it ain’t for everyone. Saikat Chakrabarti, would-be successor to retiring San Francisco Representative and past Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, is a recent case in point: a candidate who seemed a perfect fit for the city’s political scene, yet failed to win one of the two slots in the November final. What is unusual about the Chakrabarti story is while we’re all too familiar with political figures who have mastered the art of winning and holding office at the expense of developing a clear vision of why they’re doing it, his problem has largely been the reverse.
Chakrabarti brought two major assets to the race: ideas and money. Some of his past ideas had been quite impactful. After significant involvement in Bernie Sanders’ seminal 2016 presidential campaign, he co-founded Brand New Congress to recruit new congressional candidates, one of whom was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. While Brand New Congress proved ephemeral, Justice Democrats, a subsequent organization he also co-founded, has proven to have staying power, continuing to promote Sanders-stripe candidates – with notable successes. Chakrabarti’s money derives from his role as a founding engineer of the then-start-up Stripe, a payments processing company. He is known to be a centimillionaire.
The connection with Ocasio-Cortez went on to became substantial, as he served as her campaign manager, chief of staff following her 2018 upset election to Congress, and a principal in the formulation of the Green New Deal legislation that she introduced in the House. Unfortunately, Chakrabarti himself did not fare so well within the walls of the House as he had without. He soon drew fire within the Democratic Caucus for sending out tweets criticizing other House members by name. Although he had previously shown great facility in dealing with both “big picture” political questions as well as the mechanics of campaigning, the curriculum doesn’t stop there. What he had apparently failed to understand was that while members of Congress may choose to criticize their colleagues by name, their staff are not expected to do so without the approval of the elected representative. Before her first year in office was out, he and Ocasio-Cortez would part ways. He went on to work on Green New Deal-type issues in an outside organization. Neither would subsequently speak in great detail about the parting. She did not endorse his congressional run.
In October 2025, Chakrabarti formally announced his candidacy for the San Francisco congressional seat. It was widely expected that the Speaker Emerita would not be running for re-election, but then she had surprised many by running for the term she was now serving after losing the speakership to the Republicans and stepping down from party leadership – and had made no statement regarding her 2026 intentions. Chakrabarti’s move forced the hand of State Senator Scott Wiener whose desire to succeed Pelosi was well known. (It had also previously been widely assumed that when Wiener did run he would ultimately get the nod of the Pelosi-Willie Brown establishment wing of the party, something that did not happen, presumably in part due to his announcing for the seat before Pelosi indicated her intention to leave it.)
To one unfamiliar with the details of San Francisco politics the Chakrabarti candidacy would likely have seemed a welcome development for the a left that has long been frustrated by city’s domination by what they considered the corporate-oriented wing of the Democratic Party – here was a big picture candidate with the capacity to run a high budget campaign. (Chakrabarti put in something like $10 million of his own money over the course of the campaign.) And he even seemed to recognize the fundamental truth that the wealthy will generally deny to their dying days – that all value comes from labor, telling supporters at his kick-off rally, “I ended up making a lot of money, and that was a profoundly weird and radicalizing experience,” but “I did not work harder than my teacher or a nurse or the people cleaning our offices ...I just won the startup lottery.”
But the campaign did not turn out as hoped. At the time of this writing the latest tally shows him at 17 percent, trailing Weiner at 41 percent and Supervisor Connie Chan at 29 percent. Chan, who much of the city’s left ultimately rallied around, might never have run if Chakrabarti had actually proved to be that hoped-for candidate. So what went wrong? Well, for one thing it wasn’t that his potential base refused to vote for a wealthy candidate who appeared to be trying to buy the office. Billionaire gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer, who spent over $200 million on his race, carried San Francisco by a 38-25 percent margin over statewide frontrunner Xavier Becerra, the voters apparently deciding that he been putting his ill-gotten gains to good use.
A San Francisco Chronicle post mortem maintained that Chakrabarti’s problem was that he didn’t meet the right people. An article painting the city’s politics as special – which they are, just like every other city’s politics are special – described “San Francisco’s bare-knuckled political scene that is famously described as a ‘knife-fight in a phone booth’” to which “San Francisco Democratic Party Chair Nancy Tung added a telling detail ... ‘It’s a knife fight in a phone booth where you know everybody in the phone booth.’” The article goes on to say that, “Chakrabarti didn’t reach out to Tung,” and “More surprisingly, he didn’t reach out to [former Supervisor Aaron] Peskin, who is deeply wired into the city’s left.” Here the Chronicle ever so slightly touches on the real story, one that was covered by the city’s online publications, particularly 48 Hills and Mission Local.
Unmentioned in the Chronicle article is the fact that Peskin had been the candidate of the left in the city’s 2024 mayoral election and not only did Chakrabarti fail to meet Peskin, but he supported his opponent, the winner and current mayor Daniel Lurie (who has just successfully led the opposition to a ballot question proposing an increase to the rate and scope of the city’s Overpaid Executive Tax that is levied on companies with executives making more than 100 times the median employee compensation.) Perhaps even more importantly though, Chakrabarti also supported the candidate who supplanted Dean Preston on the city’s Board of Supervisors. Preston, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, had been the city’s elected official most prominently championing the type of politics that Chakrabarti proclaimed that he was all about. And not just did he support Bilal Mahmood against Preston in 2024, but he donated to his campaign funds – plural because while contributions to supervisorial races are limited to $500, candidates can and often do simultaneously run campaigns for the Democratic County Central Committee, a race run without that contribution limit – the money spent on one race obviously redounding to the benefit of both. Chakrabarti contributed not only the maximum $500 to Mahmood’s supervisorial campaign, but also an additional $10,000 to his successful DCCC campaign in which he ran on what 48 Hills called “the right-wing corporate slate that took over the local Democratic Party” – ironically the same one that Party Chair Nancy Tung ran on.
It’s an unfortunate story really. The tangle of policy, principle, friendship, relationships, and future prospects that may go into endorsement decisions can be a thorny matter for anyone involved in politics, but in this case the opposition to Preston was really not a close question. For many it was simply disqualifying – after all, if he was off on this, what else might he be off on? Absent such egregious errors Chakrabarti might have been the candidate the San Francisco left was hoping for; he was talking a more radical talk than Chan does. Hopefully he’ll go on to make further useful policy contributions. Who knows maybe he’ll even try the electoral route again some time. But if he does, maybe he will have learned by then that there’s more to it than just knowing which way you’d vote on the big bills. Politics is a tough business – it ain’t for everyone.
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Calling Attacks on Platner ‘Politics as Usual’, Mainers Say They Have Back of Working-Class Champion
“We’re going to win on Tuesday, and we’re going to win in November, and we’re going to take power back for the people in this country," said the US Senate candidate from Maine.
Jun 08, 2026
At Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner's final town hall ahead of Tuesday's primary election in Maine, the combat veteran and oyster farmer received a warm welcome from roughly 400 attendees who appeared eager to focus on the candidate's policy platform and issues affecting working Mainers rather than numerous attacks that have been launched against him in recent months.
Platner walked into a meeting room at an Elks Lodge in Portland, Maine's largest city, to a standing ovation and said, as he had at a rally on Friday with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) in Bar Harbor, that Mainers have shown they "have my back."
“We’re going to win on Tuesday, and we’re going to win in November, and we’re going to take power back for the people in this country," he told the crowd.
After speaking for close to an hour about issues including economic inequality, his goal of being "a voice that says no to war" in the US Senate, and his push for Medicare for All, Platner opened the floor for questions that focused on repealing Citizens United, his plan to pass a billionaire wealth tax, and the lawmakers and Senate committees the political newcomer has begun building relationships with as he aims to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
He named Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) as a lawmaker he has little in common with ideologically but with whom he shares a goal of ending "forever wars," and listed Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) as some of the other senators he hopes to work with closely.
One woman stood up to note that some in the national corporate media have appeared certain in recent days that they "know" the voters of Maine and that they are likely to turn against Platner following news stories about his past marital struggles, former relationships, comments he made online years ago, and a tattoo he got while in the Marines.
"What do people not understand about Mainers?" the voter asked.
Platner answered that he's had conversations about economic inequality with people across the state—including at more than 80 town halls—and said that those focused on the controversies don't understand "how clear-eyed" and "how frustrated" Maine voters are with the political status quo.
“I think a lot of folks at the national level misunderstand,” he said at one point. “The reason they keep getting everything wrong is they think this is a race about me, but it isn’t. This is a race about us. This is a race about the future of politics in Maine."
One voter, Kurt Fedora of Buxton, told The Associated Press that he views the controversies that the national media has focused on in recent months as a smear campaign.
"They’re really reaching far to try to pin something on him. And it’s politics as usual,” Fedora told the outlet.
As Common Dreams noted Sunday, The New York Times' reporting last week on allegations that Platner was physically aggressive in past relationships—which he denied—has not appeared to make a dent in his campaign's fundraising. As he rallied with Khanna the day after the report came out, the campaign announced it had raised over $200,000 that day—"more money than on any day" since Gov. Janet Mills suspended her campaign in April.
Similarly, when earlier stories broke about his tattoo and Reddit posts, Platner only widened his lead over Mills in primary polls.
One attendee named Paul told Common Dreams that at the Sunday town hall, Platner had "described a system that needs to be changed," and that the same system "is out to destroy him in any way they can" by publishing stories like one that focused on Platner's text messages with women early in his marriage.
"There was no way I could care less about that," he said. "I always like to say, it's between him and his wife."
Another supporter, Claudia, added that ahead of Tuesday's primary election, she is "looking at the bigger picture."
"This country is in a really dangerous state. I mean, it's terrifying every day," she told Common Dreams. "You want more Susan Collins? I don't think so."
"I really appreciated the fact that he knows that he needs to have people with whom he has a relationship in Washington and with whom he can work," she added, turning her attention to the substance of Platner's remarks. "I feel like he's done a really good job of not only appreciating what so many of the issues are, but how he can engage with people down there [in DC]."
Platner emphasized that the Democratic Party has tried to unseat Collins numerous times since she took office in 1997, most recently with moderate state lawmaker Sara Gideon in 2020. Mills spoke affectionately about Collins last September, a month before she jumped into the race, saying she appreciates "everything she is doing" during President Donald Trump's second term.
Collins has long cast herself as a "moderate" and a defender of women's rights in particular, despite the fact that she has voted to confirm more than a dozen anti-choice judges in Trump's second administration alone.
“We are going to beat someone that the establishment of the Democratic Party has failed to unseat for 30 years,” Platner said. “We are going to beat someone who, for years, has tried to trick us all into thinking that she’s a moderate.”
While focusing their attention on Platner's policy platform, some in the crowd at the town hall suggested they were eager to rally for the candidate partially because of the recent attacks on his character. One attendee, Laurie Hudson, passed around a card she had made that read, "We are your Graham-ily and we've got your back," asking others in the audience to sign. She presented it to Platner after his opening remarks.
Platner urged attendees to get involved not only in his campaign's get-out-the-vote efforts in the final days of the primary campaign—by "going out into our communities and having hard conversations"—but in a larger movement powered by the working class, aimed at beating back Trump's agenda and the corporations and dark money groups that helped pave his way to the White House by pouring billions of dollars into elections.
"Throughout history, the only thing that's ever beaten fascism is a broad-based working-class coalition," said Platner. "This is a race about building power the old-fashioned way, from the ground up... Join a labor union, go help out at the local food pantry, go help out at a food bank, but you've got to do something. Because the moment we're in right now, it's going to require all of us.
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'Schumer Is Far Out of Touch': 80% of New York Democrats Oppose US Weapons Transfers to Israel
“If current party leadership is unwilling to represent their own voters and the majority of Americans, then it is time for new leadership."
Jun 08, 2026
A poll released Monday shows that around 80% of Democratic voters in New York oppose US weapons transfers to Israel, putting Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—a stalwart supporter of Israel—way out of step with his voter base.
The survey, conducted by Data for Progress and published by the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project, found that 82% of New York Democrats—and 60% of the state's voters overall—believe the US "should restrict taxpayer-funded weapons to Israel until it stops attacking civilians in Gaza." The poll also found that 76% of Democratic voters in the state would favor the US Senate voting to halt the transfer of US bombs to Israel, which has repeatedly used American weaponry to commit grave war crimes.
The poll was conducted roughly a month after Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) broke with the overwhelming majority of their Democratic colleagues in voting against two resolutions aimed at blocking Trump administration sales of 1,000-pound bombs and bulldozers to the Israeli government.
The resolutions were spearheaded by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who polled more favorably than Schumer among New York voters overall—as did New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who has been floated as a possible primary challenger to Schumer in 2028.
"New York State voters, especially Democrats, aren’t being represented by their senators," the IMEU Policy Project wrote on social media, adding that "Schumer is far out of touch with New York voters on funding Israel."
A majority of New York voters (51%), and 70% of Democrats, believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, according to the new poll, a position that Schumer has rejected—putting him in conflict with both his own constituents and leading Holocaust scholars and human rights organizations.
“When Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand voted against blocking the bombs and bulldozers Israel is using to destroy Palestinian and Lebanese homes, they were not just voting against the vast majority of their own Senate caucus and Democratic voters, but they were voting against the majority of New Yorkers they’re elected to represent,” Margaret DeReus, the IMEU Policy Project's executive director, said in a statement. “If current party leadership is unwilling to represent their own voters and the majority of Americans, then it is time for new leadership."
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