Marie Hurabiell, 55, executive director of ConnectedSF, announced her candidacy for California's 11th Congressional District on February 25, 2026. Nancy Pelosi held the seat for 38 years before stepping down. The primary is June 2, with the top two advancing to November. She switched from registered Republican to Democrat in 2022, and President Trump appointed her to the Presidio Trust board in 2018. The rest of the primary field: State Sen. Scott Wiener ($2.8 million raised), former AOC chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti ($1.8 million raised, plus $1.5 million of his own money), and Supervisor Connie Chan ($175,000, union-backed). The race is unusually fractious for a San Francisco Democratic primary. Hurabiell's entry scrambles the calculation.
1. Progressive Governance Broke This City (Hurabiell Backers, Moderate Democrats)
The spending isn't working. Homelessness is up. Retail is dead. Someone has to say it out loud.
Chesa Boudin's recall proves it. In 2022, San Francisco centrists and moderates successfully recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin. Crime was rising. Boudin was seen as too soft on prosecutions. Hurabiell was a visible organizer in the recall campaign. The victory proved moderates exist in SF and will mobilize.
"The extreme progressive agenda has failed our beautiful city." That's Hurabiell's direct quote from her campaign launch. Her pitch is structural: homelessness is up 4% year-over-year despite $1.8 billion in spending. Retail vacancy sits at 22% in some neighborhoods. Tech companies are relocating outside the city. She's the only candidate running explicitly against progressive policy orthodoxy.
And the rest of the field is really, really left. Wiener supported SB 380 (sensitive crime sentencing reform) and has been one of the legislature's most progressive voices on homelessness and housing policy. Chakrabarti is AOC's former chief of staff and co-founder of Justice Democrats. Connie Chan is union-backed but not a centrist figurehead. Hurabiell is the only one positioned to directly challenge progressive governance on its own terms.
2. She's a Republican Running a Bait-and-Switch (Chakrabarti Campaign, Progressives)
Changed her registration to run. Trump's appointee. Her rhetoric is straight out of the right-wing playbook.
The timing is the tell. Hurabiell was Republican until 2022. She switched to Democrat right before filing for office — six days before, in fact. That's not a conversion. That's a registration change for ballot access.
The Presidio Trust appointment. Trump appointed her to the Presidio Trust in 2018. That was during his first term, before the party switch. She accepted a federal appointment from a Republican president, then switched to Democrat in 2022. Why would Trump put her on a Bay Area board unless she had Republican credentials and alignment? The appointment is the receipt.
The education rhetoric is Republican, plain and simple. Hurabiell has compared critical race theory in schools to "propaganda from Hitler and the KKK." That's not moderate centrism. That's the language of the right-wing education wars. It's how Republicans delegitimize progressive-leaning curricula. She's running centrist strategy while deploying right-wing talking points.
3. The Math Favors the Progressive (Political Analysts and Strategists)
In San Francisco Democratic primaries, progressives always consolidate. Moderates always splinter.
Chakrabarti wins the consolidation game. He has $3.3 million total (raised $1.8 million, self-funded $1.5 million). Wiener has $2.8 million. Hurabiell has less than $100,000. In a primary where 70% vote by mail and money means digital ads, Chakrabarti's war-chest is decisive. He has AOC's machinery behind him. He has the progressive credential. In San Francisco, progressives turn out and vote as a bloc.
Moderate fragmentation is the real story. Wiener is moderate-ish, but progressives don't trust his housing deregulation pitch. Hurabiell is fully centrist. If moderates split between them, Chakrabarti takes the primary because progressives consolidate. Hurabiell's entry doesn't save the moderate lane — it splits it. And Wiener, despite his war-chest, is stuck defending his record to progressives while losing money-per-vote to Chakrabarti's activist army.
The top-two format means November is already decided. If Chakrabarti and Wiener finish top-two, progressives win the general (district is +40 Dem). If Chakrabarti and Hurabiell finish top-two, it's closer but Chakrabarti still has the advantage among Democratic voters. The only scenario moderates win the general is if both Hurabiell and Wiener beat Chakrabarti to the top two — which requires moderate consolidation that hasn't happened in San Francisco Democratic politics for a decade.
Where This Lands
Progressives see Hurabiell as a right-wing entryist threat and are mobilizing against her. Moderates view her as the only authentic centrist in the race. The actual race is a three-way between Chakrabarti's progressive machinery, Wiener's split-the-difference approach, and Hurabiell's underdog moderate gambit. San Francisco Democrats will pick two of these three to advance to November. The top-two finish will determine whether the House seat goes left or stays center.
Sources
SF Standard, "Centrist political activist wants to disrupt SF congressional race," February 25, 2026
Saikat Chakrabarti for Congress, Campaign Finance Filings, February 2026
Presidio Trust, "Board Member Appointments 2025," 2025
KQED, "SF Recall Boudin: The Campaign That Shocked the Left," June 2022
San Francisco Chronicle, "Homelessness in San Francisco rises 4% in 2024-2025 count," February 2026
SF Planning Department, "Retail Vacancy Analysis Q1 2026," 2026
Ballotpedia, "Marie Hurabiell," 2026
Ballotpedia, "California's 11th Congressional District election, 2026," 2026