Overview
- Saikat Chakrabarti’s congressional bid drew hundreds to City Nights in SoMa Thursday in a packed “Change the Party” rally headlined by streamer Hasan Piker.
- San Francisco Supervisor Matt Dorsey said he will seek a Democratic Party resolution condemning Piker and urging him and his supporters to form their own party and leave the Democrats.
- Flyers had called for protests outside the event, but no counter-protest appeared as a mostly young crowd filled the venue and cheered the campaign’s call to replace party leaders.
- With the June primary nearing, the centimillionaire former Stripe engineer is leaning on self-funding of about $4.8 million, paid door-knocking teams, influencer reach, and grassroots events to build support.
- Chakrabarti, a Justice Democrats co-founder and former chief of staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who has not endorsed him, frames the race as a test of new-media organizing against local establishment favorites like state Sen. Scott Wiener and Supervisor Connie Chan.