Real Estate Backs Wiener Heavily in CA-11 Race

San Francisco voters will make their choice in the first competitive congressional race in four decades, as ballots start to arrive in mailboxes for California’s June 2 primary election.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, Supervisor Connie Chan, and former congressional staffer and tech centimillionaire Saikat Chakrabarti are the leading candidates in the race. The real estate industry has clearly chosen their favorite, according to the latest campaign finance data.

Wiener, who over the last decade has led the state’s pro-housing turn, has brought in over $123,000 from people within the real estate orbit. That accounts for a little under 5 percent of Weiner’s $2.7 million total raise from individuals.

Many of the donors contributed between $500 and $3,500, which is the max contribution an individual can make per election cycle. However, donors can contribute the maximum for each of the primary and general elections, allowing the total contributions for some donors to reach $7,000. Wiener has been fundraising since 2023.

Donors representing the developer California Barrel Company, responsible for the mega-redevelopment of San Francisco’s Potrero Power Station, contributed $13,600. Moses Libitzky, head of the Emeryville-based commercial real estate investment firm Libitzky Property Companies, donated $7,000 dating back to 2023. Chris Foley, founder of commercial real estate firm Ground Matrix, contributed $6,300. Executives at Related California, one of the state’s largest developers of affordable housing donated $4,300.

Of note: Wiener raised more than $105,000 from donors associated with artificial intelligence titan Anthropic, and at least $65,000 from employees of OpenAI, the company responsible for ChatGPT.

Chan, who as a San Francisco supervisor has pushed back against the housing and density mandates handed down from Wiener’ state legislature, raised $4,000 from three contributors associated with the real estate industry, including $3,500 from San Francisco philanthropist Diane Wilsey, who donated on behalf of real estate services firm A. Wilsey Properties Company. Wilsey, who also donated $3,700 to Wiener’s campaign, is a noted Republican donor and has supported President Donald Trump.

No one in the race has spent more money than the $5 million doled out by Chakrabarti, who has raised about $360,000 from individual contributions. He has largely self-financed his campaign, helped in large part by the fortune he made through his former employer, fintech company Stripe.

Chakrabarti has raised about $3,200 through 89 contributions from within the real estate industry. Chicago-based broker Michael Rayan came in as the top real estate donor to the campaign, with $250.

San Francisco’s office surge continues

In the blink of an eye, the artificial intelligence industry has taken San Francisco from doom loop to post-pandemic darling. Residential rents, and office leases, have surged faster in the last year than anywhere else in the country.

Now, that recovery has been put in a fresh context. Through March, demand for office space in San Francisco surpassed its 2018-2019 average, according to real estate software firm VTS. San Francisco was the only one of a handful of key U.S. markets tracked by VTS that eclipsed its pre-pandemic averages.

At different points over the last few years, New York City’s office demand has exceeded its 2018-2019 numbers, but fell short of it in the first quarter of this year. None of the other cities tracked by VTS — Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Seattle, and Los Angeles — have seen demand fully recover.

The firm’s monthly office demand index tracks square footage needs stated by tenants actively touring buildings in a given month relative to the total square footage observed in VTS’ network. The company tracks between 80 and 90 percent of the commercial buildings in its network, allowing it to track 99 percent of demand, said CEO Nick Romito.

Artificial intelligence continues to carry the San Francisco market, with 67 new AI companies touring offices in the city between January and March, according to VTS.