How a California primary split the Asian American vote

Albert Lam spent months knocking on doors across San Francisco’s most heavily Chinese neighborhoods, ready with a simple question : Do you speak Cantonese?

Lam was part of an unprecedented ground operation  for Saikat Chakrabarti — an Indian American whose estimated wealth is over $100 million, vying to succeed Rep. Nancy Pelosi. Chakrabarti had recruited roughly 30 Cantonese speakers, led by Lam, in one of the largest paid canvassing operations in the city’s history. 

The campaign highlighted the stakes in San Francisco’s June 2 congressional primary, its most consequential in decades. It was the first time Pelosi didn’t run in nearly 40 years, and the race featured two Asian American candidates among its three frontrunners. In the weeks leading up to the election, Chakrabarti and Supervisor Connie Chan — a Hong Kong immigrant and self-proclaimed “Chinatown daughter” — were neck-and-neck for second place. 

The race, in a district where around one in three residents are Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, reflected a broader rise in the group’s political visibility — and the difficulty of representing communities that are far from monolithic.

Chan came to Chinatown at 13 with her single mother and younger brother, and three decades later earned endorsements from Senator Adam Schiff, eight members of Congress and dozens of labor organizations. If elected, she would be the first Chinese American to represent San Francisco in Congress.  

“They have seen me and know who I am,” Chan told VOICES. “All the other candidates require translators for monolingual Chinese Americans to speak to the community, let alone to actually understand the community — but I speak directly.”

For Chakrabarti, trying to win over San Francisco’s Asian American voters meant leaning into his family’s immigrant story. The child of Bengali Hindus, he worked in the tech industry and co-founded Justice Democrats before briefly serving as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff in 2019.

“There is a cultural language that we share,” Chakrabarti said. “When my father came to this country, he helped set up the Bengali Association of Dallas-Fort Worth in Texas. We looked to Chinatown in San Francisco as the gold standard of how immigrant communities can organize not just for cultural preservation, but for economic uplifting.”

Vivien Leung, a political science professor at Santa Clara University who conducts research on Asian American political behavior, said that AAPI voters have a slight preference for a candidate of their own background. 

However, she added that the community has historically struggled with turnout and political efficacy. The problem is driven in part by language barriers, limited campaign outreach and the pressures facing working-class Asian American families like those in California’s 11th congressional district, which encompasses most of San Francisco. With all of the major candidates in the race running as Democrats, party affiliation was not a deciding factor so identity played an even bigger role. 

“Insider identity kind of functions as a cue,” Leung said. “In the absence of other information, for instance, policy on property taxes, I might use Connie Chan’s last name as a cue. It goes a long way in terms of opening doors.”

Lam sees otherwise, saying of Cantonese-speaking voters in the district:“People are looking past identity and they’re looking for policy. They’re looking for what kind of person you are. How are you going to vote? How are you going to represent (us)?”

Chakrabarti has faced attacks for his lack of involvement in city politics and decision to largely self-fund his campaign with personal wealth accumulated from his time in Silicon Valley. Chan argued that he had no connection to the communities he sought to represent.

“He’s spent $10 million to buy this seat and I firmly believe not only that Chinese Americans cannot be bought, San Francisco cannot be bought,” Chan told VOICES . “Frankly, this is an election, not an auction.”

In response to the criticism, Chakrabarti has noted that he has owned a San Francisco home since 2013 and enrolled his daughter in a Chinese immersion school to deepen his connection to the community. 

Khalil Hoque, a resident of mixed Central Asian, South Asian and European heritage who voted for Chakrabarti and attended the candidate’s  final town hall in late May, the attacks on Chakrabarti’s lack of involvement in the city struck him as misguided.

“I personally only moved to the city a couple of years ago and I never lived in any city more than eight years in my entire life,” Hoque said. “I don’t consider myself to be from anywhere, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t love the city I live in.”

Pornvilai Buckter was also at the May town hall, which was held in Sunset, one of San Francisco’s majority-Asian American neighborhoods. A first-generation Thai American who has lived in the city for over three decades, Buckter said her biggest issue was affordability. AAPI voters nationwide named cost of living and inflation as one of the most important problems facing the U.S, according to an April survey from AAPI Data, a research and policy organization based out of University of California, Berkeley.

“I’m sick and tired. How can you afford a house? If your grandparents don’t own the house, how can you? You have to work till you die,” Buckter told VOICES. 

While Buckter left the event undecided, Caina Li had made her choice long before Election Day, which she spent as a volunteer for Chan. 

Li immigrated from China 15 years ago and lives in the Richmond District, which Chan has represented on the Board of Supervisors — which functions like a city council — since 2020. 

“As an immigrant woman, I am so inspired by how strong and hardworking Connie is,” said Li, a social worker. “She’s well known in the Chinese community — I feel like she’s just a sister in the neighborhood.” 

Indeed, many in the community feel like Chan is part of the extended Richmond District family. Before her death in 2021, Chan’s mother worked as a community organizer at a nonprofit supporting seniors and people with dementia. Li said that for many residents, supporting Chan felt like continuing that legacy.

The grassroots support for Chan’s campaign proved stronger than pollsters anticipated. Despite pre-election figures forecasting a close fight with Chakrabarti, she pulled ahead decisively on Election Day, defeating him by around 12 points.

“How does it feel to beat $10 million dollars?” Chan asked the California Working Families Party crowd in her victory speech. “Tonight you showed what people power looks like.”

A few weeks after the primary, Chakrabarti threw his support behind Chan, redirecting his canvassing operation — and money — to back the candidate who defeated him. She will face Scott Wiener in November — the white state senator who finished first with over 40% of the vote. According to a San Francisco Chronicle poll in May, before Chakrabarti, Wiener led among Asian American voters by nearly two to one over Chan.

Sherman King, a Chinese American, has supported Wiener for around two decades. He said the politician has shown up consistently over the years, attending events, listening to concerns and delivering on his promises. The Chinese community affectionately calls him 威善高 (Wei shan gao), which King said translates to powerful, kind and tall. 

In California’s governor race — which included the most expensive primary to date — there were no major Asian American candidates after Betty Yee dropped out in late April. Even though AAPIs made up one in five voters in the state, campaigns rarely treat the Asian Americans as a priority, according to UCLA political science professor Natalie Masuoka.

The indifference, she argued, creates a vicious cycle: Stereotypes about Asian American political disengagement leads to less outreach, which leads to lower turnout. To challenge that assumption, Masuoka’s department helped organize an April AANHPI California Gubernatorial Forum in Los Angeles’ Koreatown.
“We invited all the candidates and were really heartened by the fact that candidates like Tom Steyer and Xavier Becerra came,” Masuoka said. “Katie Porter chose not to come to the event and she’s not a top candidate. I hope that our next governor can see that when they make efforts into our community, they see that is part of the reason why they are doing well.”

Asian Americans have been the fastest-growing racial group in the electorate in recent years. Christine Chen, executive director of AAPIVote, said the surge in voter participation also fueled a rise in Asian American candidates — with nearly 500 running nationwide during 2025’s off-year election.

The momentum, however, faces new challenges. This year’s elections come after an unprecedented rise in gerrymandering, as several states have redrawn congressional maps. Coupled with court challenges from Democrats, shifting deadlines and ID requirements, and a lack of language access, and other updated rules, Chen said Asian Americans could be left confused. 

“Even if you voted in the past, the rules and deadlines and everything may have changed,” Chen said.

Keeping AAPI voters engaged falls on Get Out the Vote advocates and candidates alike, especially those who come from AAPI communities they hope to represent, experts told VOICES. For a diverse electorate still finding its political footing, the work of being heard has only just begun.