Nancy Pelosi’s handpicked successor is trailing in a new University of Southern California poll just two weeks before Election Day, a warning that the former speaker’s endorsement is not delivering the support she expected.
A California Post report on a USC survey of 454 likely voters found state Sen. Scott Wiener ahead of San Francisco supervisor Connie Chan, 47% to 41%, with 9% still undecided. Wiener’s lead sits inside the poll’s margin of error, but the timing lands hard: the survey ran Oct. 16 to 19, framed as just two weeks before voters decide who takes the seat Pelosi is leaving.
Pelosi remains popular at home. The same survey put her approval among San Francisco voters at 55%, with 32% disapproving. That goodwill has not fully transferred to the candidate she backed.
Chan is Pelosi’s choice to succeed her in Congress. Pelosi campaigned hard for her and helped lift Chan past another competitor in the primary. Yet the general-election numbers show a race that has not broken the way the endorsement machine promised.
USC professor Christian Grose, who ran the poll, told the San Francisco Standard that Pelosi’s voter base appears to be splitting between Chan and Wiener. He put the problem in plain terms.
Grose said:
"Pelosi has endorsed the person who has far left support... so her endorsement is not translating to Chan support,"
He also allowed that the endorsement still matters on the downside.
Grose added:
"On the other hand, Chan might be losing by a lot without the endorsement."
That is the bind. Pelosi’s name still carries weight in California Democratic politics. It has not closed the gap against Wiener with likely voters who actually show up.
Grose’s read of the electorate favors Wiener’s coalition. He said Wiener is drawing the voters most likely to cast ballots in midterms and in general elections with higher turnout.
Grose said:
"He’s drawing support from the kinds of people who tend to vote in midterm elections and who tend to have higher turnout in general,"
Chan’s strength sits further left. Support for her runs strongest among voters described as “very liberal” and among supporters of the Democratic Socialists of America. Grose summed up her coalition this way:
Grose said:
"Her base seems to be really progressive, very liberal."
In a low-turnout or highly motivated progressive slice, that can look formidable. In a broader likely-voter sample two weeks from Election Day, it has left her behind a state senator who spent years preparing for this opening.
The contest did not arrive without history. Wiener had made clear he had long eyed Pelosi’s seat, even before she announced she would retire. That ambition produced a tense relationship with the former House speaker, who then threw her weight behind Chan instead.
At a Politico event on Aug. 11, Pelosi dodged questions about her intervention and about Wiener. She said she endorsed Chan because she wanted to see more women in Congress. The gender rationale was the public explanation. The campaign conduct that followed was sharper.
Pelosi and Chan blasted Wiener over an AI chatbot he put out that poked fun at Chan’s policies. They labeled the chatbot “racist” and “sexist.” The attack line was meant to define Wiener. The new poll suggests it has not defined the race in Chan’s favor.
Pelosi is still described as a Democratic powerhouse in California, and the 55% approval figure among San Francisco voters backs the idea that she has not become a local liability. The succession fight tests a different skill: converting personal standing into votes for a chosen heir against a well-positioned rival inside the same party lane.
Wiener’s support is strongest among voters who strictly identify as Democrats, per the poll’s picture of the field. Chan holds the far-left progressive lane and the DSA-aligned slice. Pelosi’s endorsement was supposed to bridge that gap and put her supervisor over the top. Two weeks from Election Day, the USC sample shows Wiener ahead and nearly one in ten voters still uncommitted.
A lead inside the margin of error is not a lock. It is also not the result a heavyweight endorsement is supposed to produce against a known intraparty challenger. Grose’s own framing leaves room for the endorsement to be propping Chan up even as it fails to put her in front. That is a thin consolation when the ballot is this close and the calendar is this short.
San Francisco voters still give Pelosi solid marks. They are not automatically writing those marks onto Chan’s line. Wiener built a coalition that looks more like the people who turn out. Chan held the ideological left and the speaker’s public blessing. The survey says the first of those has traveled farther than the second.
Endorsements are not ballots. In this race, that distinction is no longer theoretical.
