Connie Chan concedes congressional race

Big update in San Francisco, that's where State Senator Scott Wiener is on the verge of taking over the congressional seat of the retiring Nancy Pelosi. His opponent, Supervisor Connie Chan, conceded the race. Now officially this race has not been called by the Associated Press or any other news organization. We have been following the projections of the Associated Press during this election cycle. As of this morning, Scott Weiner is leading Connie Chan by almost 20,000 votes. And that leads us right now to David McEwen, our political science professor at Sonoma State. David, good morning. Good to see you. Good to see you, Dave. Good morning. You've got a lot that you have to follow. This race in San Francisco was really interesting, and now one of the candidates dropped out. What do you make of this? Well, as you see, Connie Chan conceding the race here with about 60% of the vote in, it does essentially wrap up the race. And that's because, look, when we have a 10-point lead like this by Scott Wiener, we don't expect much to change. As that goes on, you look back at this race, there are a couple of different elements, right? Nancy Pelosi, the godmother of politics Democratic politics, for sure. She endorses Connie Chan, but Connie Chan's ability to be a good retail politician, to build enthusiasm, build that base, really wasn't there. It didn't really catch fire. There's a lot of money involved in this race, AI money. Big tech money backing Scott Wiener. Scott Wiener talks about that in terms of regulating AI that he did in the California legislature. But there's some elements of that that are minimal regulation. But AI regulation is going to be a huge issue in Washington, D.C., moving forward. Democrats didn't just have a big night. They had a historic night. So the impact on important industries like big tech and Scott Wiener's role in that will be important in the 120th Congress. So let me ask you, if it works out the way. The way it appears it's going to be that Scott Wiener takes over Nancy Pelosi's seat. How do you expect him to function in Congress? Well, look, Scott Wiener has. Picked on some big deals, some big issues when he was in Sacramento. Those issues included housing, kind of expansion and relaxation of CEQA, kind of expansion of housing, but pushing back on CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act. So he's gone and poked some oxen, as it were, when he's been in Sacramento. He has some difficulty working with everyone because sometimes his reputation, his manner, how he's acted in Sacramento hasn't always been as a team. player. I think that will challenge him in Washington to a certain degree because you're a freshman and you're filling the shoes of Nancy Pelosi. No one can fill those shoes. So the degree to which there's any mentorship between Nancy Pelosi and Scott Weiner, there's likely to be none. Those camps don't get along. But the degree to which Weiner can cut his own path in Washington, particularly focused on some key issues, perhaps like housing and like AI. But he's going to be a freshman member of Congress, but you're going to see I see a very activist Congress, the Congress Congress that's coming in, the 120th, is going to be much like what we saw in the class of 1974, a big class that comes in in the wake of Watergate. And while the numbers are not the same, the impact is gonna be equally the same. They're gonna change how Congress operates, obviously pushing up against the Republican president. Be very interesting to watch how Scott Wiener carves his path. All right. And you and I both will be watching. David McEwen, our political science professor at Sonoma State. Thank you, as always, for being with us on Mornings on Two. Happy Friday Eve, Dave. All right, Dave.