‘The Godmother’s’ power fades as new poll shows Nancy Pelosi’s pick for successor floundering

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remains a Democratic powerhouse in California, but a bombshell poll just two weeks before Election Day suggests even her political clout may not be enough to handpick her successor.

Pelosi, who is set to retire from Congress, endorsed San Francisco supervisor Connie Chan to take her seat and heavily campaigned for her against state Sen. Scott Wiener.

But a new University of Southern California survey of 454 likely voters from Oct. 16 to 19 has Wiener in the lead with 47% of likely voters, compared to 41% for Chan and 9% who are undecided.

Wiener’s edge is within the poll’s margin of error, however, suggesting that the race is still very tight.

The survey showed that Pelosi is still very popular among San Francisco voters, with 55% approving of her versus 32% disapproval.

But that popularity hasn’t given way to Chan’s success. Christian Grose, a USC professor behind the poll, told the San Francisco Standard that the Pelosi voter base seems to be splitting their votes between Chan, who has far-left progressives in her corner, and Wiener, a more establishment Democrat.

In other words, Chan’s base of support doesn’t match with Pelosi’s establishment base, where a slight majority have gone for Wiener.

“Pelosi has endorsed the person who has far left support … so her endorsement is not translating to Chan support,” Grose said. “On the other hand, Chan might be losing by a lot without the endorsement.”

Wiener’s support is strongest among voters who strictly identify as Democrats, while support for Chan is strongest among those “very liberal” or supporters of the Democratic Socialists of America, according to the poll.

That ideological split is what may be giving Wiener the edge so far, as the demographics of his voters, who tend to be higher-income and more Democrat-loyal, tend to turn out for the election.

“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,” Grose said. “Her base seems to be really progressive, very liberal.”

Pelosi has been very involved in the race to succeed her.  Her endorsement of Chan, for instance, uplifted the supervisor past another competitor during the primary to make it into the general election against Wiener, the frontrunner.

Wiener and Pelosi have reportedly had a tense relationship ever since the state senator made it clear he’s been long eyeing her seat, even before she announced she would retire. Pelosi’s endorsement of Chan was seen as a sign of that rebuke.

Some of that tension spilled out during the campaigning, when Pelosi and Chan blasted Wiener for putting out a “racist” and “sexist” AI chatbot poking fun at Chan’s policies.

Pelosi, at a Politico event on Aug. 11, dodged questions about her intervention in the race and her thoughts on Wiener. She said at that event she endorsed Chan because the former speaker wanted to see more women in Congress.

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