Scott Wiener, author of California's SB 1047, wins Pelosi's House seat

State Senator Scott Wiener, the author of California’s SB 1047 frontier-model safety bill, won the congressional seat covering San Francisco that Nancy Pelosi has held for nearly 40 years. KTVU reported that San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan conceded on 4 November, the day after the election, saying she did not see “a clear path to victory”. With about 57% of the vote counted, the Associated Press had Wiener at about 55% and Chan at about 44%; Chan said she expected the margin to narrow as the remaining ballots were counted.

Wiener’s AI record was part of his profile. SB 1047 passed the legislature in 2024 and was vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom; he then wrote the narrower SB 53, which Newsom signed in 2025. AI also figured in the campaign in another way: in August, KTVU reported, Wiener launched a chatbot parody of Chan that was widely condemned, including in a letter signed by Pelosi and other Democratic women. He apologised and took the site down.

TechCrunch reported that Public First, a group backed by Anthropic, had contributed $3 million to a PAC supporting him. Wiener was leading in his race when that article was published, which did not yet report a final result.

The same article assessed how AI-linked spending fared across the midterms, with results as of publication. Leading the Future, the industry-aligned network that TechCrunch described as backed by Greg Brockman and Andreessen Horowitz, spent a combined $4.8 million on behalf of Darline Graham, a Republican Senate candidate in South Carolina who lost. It had spent $27.38 million in primaries, including $8 million against Alex Bores, who lost his New York primary in June. Public First’s PAC backed several Republicans who lost, and did better with Democrats, TechCrunch said, without giving totals. Guardrails Alliance, which says its goal is “to make AI money politically toxic”, spent more than $1 million against Jimmy Gomez in California and against Aaron Flint in Montana; both lost.

TechCrunch noted that it is hard to separate the effect of AI money from the broader Democratic wave that swept the election. Leading the Future said it considers primaries a better use of funds and plans to keep spending into 2028.