Editor’s note: This is part of a series of stories on the June 2 primary election in California. The stories include comments from candidates who agreed to interviews with The Center Square.
(The Center Square) – In the wake of longtime U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, announcing her retirement, nearly a dozen candidates for the newly drawn U.S. House District 11 seat have thrown their hats into the ring.
Following in the former speaker’s footsteps, along with working on taxpayer-focused issues, are the minds of candidates.
Marie Hurabiell
Attorney Marie Hurabiell, a Democrat running for District 11, said that for herself, filling Pelosi’s shoes is a “layered” issue.
“She’s the only congressperson I’ve ever had,” Hurabiell, who has only voted in San Francisco, said. “It is somewhat surreal to be on the other end of this and realizing she’s retiring, and I could potentially replace her. She is an icon, she is a legend, and she is, to some degree, irreplaceable.”
With Pelosi leaving Congress after 20 terms, anyone who succeeds her would be an unknown entity among the current members of Congress.
“That is the challenge for anyone who wins this seat,” Hurabiell said. “Nancy is pretty much the top of the heap in Congress, and one of us will be starting as a freshman congressperson.”
Hurabiell said she finds mid-decade redistricting problematic, criticizing California’s redistricting election in November 2025. The state’s voters approved mid-decade redistricting in a special election last year, which was followed by several other states across the country. The measure in California was called Proposition 50.
“There is way too much gerrymandering going on across the board in many states,” Hurabiell said. “I would love to get us to a straight, computerized grid system.”
Hurabiell’s prior advocacy in redistricting in San Francisco aimed to evenly split voting districts in the city, with a 1% variance for most districts and a 5% variance in an effort to keep a neighborhood together.
“So I know, intimately, how this is supposed to work and why it doesn’t,” Hurabiell said. “When you look at it statewide, there’s too much politics, and it’s supposed to not be political. In redistricting, ideally, we need a computerized grid system, and we could tweak around the edges a little bit. But that’s all we should be doing as humans.”
Hurabiell received $321,737 in total contributions to her campaign through May 19, according to Federal Elections Commission filings. That included one $80,000 contribution from Hurabiell herself, along with a $20,000 contribution she also made. ActBlue, a site that allows people to contribute money to a Democratic candidate of their choice, contributed $5,000 to Hurabiell’s campaign. No political action committees contributed to Hurabiell’s campaign.
David Ganezer
David Ganezer, a Republican candidate and newspaper publisher, told The Center Square that public safety is one of the most important issues he’s campaigning on. He criticized Proposition 47, a 2014 measure that passed in California to make some nonviolent crimes misdemeanors. Many critics have called it soft on crime, and Ganezer pointed to the steps that stores today must take to protect their goods.
“There’s a lot of homelessness and fentanyl,” Ganezer said. “There was a public safety collapse. If you want to go to a Walgreens today in San Francisco and you want to buy deodorant for $10, it’s locked up. You have to get an attendant to open a glass case. That’s just wrong.”
State laws that created situations like that have pushed out many who generated the state’s economic wealth, Ganezer said.
“The tech talent and other talented people that have created San Francisco’s affluence noticed this, and a lot of them are leaving,” Ganezer said. “Companies and talented workers are leaving because of crime, homelessness, sky-high costs and government hostility. So we’re losing the tax base that pays for everything.”
Ganezer said he’s concerned that the state is allowing taxpayer dollars to be used in fraudulent ways, particularly with hospice care operations.
“California doesn’t need more tax money,” Ganezer said. “It needs greater accountability. People get free government money in exchange for voting Democrat. Some of these people are not even citizens or residents, and they have voted in California elections.”
The ongoing U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, which has been blamed for throttling California’s oil supply and driving up the price of gas, has been provoked by the Iranians themselves, Ganezer said.
“I think that President Trump is not wrong in his calculus that the Iranians have spent 47 years provoking us, killing us, killing American soldiers with [improvised explosive devices],” Ganezer said. “I don’t see the end game. I don’t think Iran’s government can be changed without the intervention of a couple hundred thousand soldiers.”
America is not going to provide those soldiers, he said.
Ganezer has only received $60.09 in campaign contributions, according to the Federal Elections Commission. There is no data about who donated that.
Nathan Deer
Nathan Deer, the only candidate with no political party affiliation, told The Center Square that he wants to see a return of federal taxpayer funding for essential projects and services that saw cuts under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and other sources of federal funding.
“It’s important to remember that federal funding is a portion of federal income tax dollars that Californians pay that gets returned back to the states on our programs,” said Deer, a home association treasurer. “It’s not some gift. The impacts on our future infrastructure by clawing back funding for high-speed rail, for pulling back for housing investment is just going to continue exacerbating the crises we see in the state.”
Deer also said he wants to close the tax loopholes created by tax breaks for corporations, such as the state’s “Waters Edge” tax break.
“I fundamentally do think that corporations don’t pay their fair share of taxes,” Deer said. “So I’m fully in support of closing this loophole. This ‘pick-and-choose’ that we have for income tax rates to pay is detrimental to a well-functioning economy. Corporations as a whole have gotten perhaps the best deal they could have possibly gotten under this administration with the extension of tax cuts.”
Deer also came out strongly against California’s congressional redistricting effort.
“We need to come down hard on any sort of last-minute redistricting efforts,” Deer said. “We really need to pass legislation to end gerrymandering altogether, whether partisan or otherwise. If we have a system in place where the party in power can redraw maps to ensure the party stays in power, we very rapidly move away from a democracy.”
Deer, so far, has received $2,025.33 in campaign contributions. Approximately $1,962.09 are from Deer himself, while only four other individuals, all California residents, contributed amounts of $500 or less, according to campaign filings.
Jingchao Xiong
Jingchao Xiong, a Republican candidate and social management scientist, said he is worried about federal funding cuts to taxpayer-funded programs like Medi-Cal and CalFresh, both of which he has relied on himself.
“I have had diabetes since 2019 and have been relying on Medi-Cal,” Xiong said, answering The Center Square’s questions by email. “When I first arrived in the U.S., I was also a beneficiary of CalFresh. I understand very well that both Medi-Cal and CalFresh are corrupt systems, not only easily abused and lacking in fairness, but also breeding a large number of officials and cronies who reap without sowing.”
He also blamed government officials for the rising cost of living in California.
“There are too many ineffective personnel supported by taxes,” Xiong said. “There are no knowledgeable social managers, officials or legislators. Various individuals hold public office simply for a better income and an easier job. Rising living costs reflect social inequality and a lack of economically knowledgeable administrators in the government.”
According to Federal Elections Commission’s filings, Xiong has not received any campaign contributions.
Omed Hamid, technology advocate
Omed Hamid, a Democratic candidate and technology advocate, told The Center Square that weak laws are to blame for allowing federal government shutdowns that ultimately impact public services that families depend on.
“Even though they are not agreeing with each other about the policies or bills, the impact really shouldn’t impact all those vulnerable people,” Hamid said. “They shouldn’t have to travel somewhere and wait in a line for hours and hours just because of the partial or full government shutdown. So I think we can do much better.”
Everyone, including corporations, should pay their fair share of taxes to keep essential public services funded, Hamid said. “We need better legislation, better laws to require all the corporations to pay for their fair share. This way, we have a better backbone for the community, for the families, for the resources that are available for their day-to-day lives.”
Rising costs in California and across the country, including housing prices, are problematic for many in California, Hamid told The Center Square.
“The cost of daily life is getting through the roof,” Hamid said. “Especially housing, the prices are no longer affordable, people are paycheck-to-paycheck, people are behind. Unfortunately, what I see, whether from federal or state legislation, there are not so many good things happening that would bring some hope to these families.”
Hamid received $10,029 in campaign contributions through May 19, according to the Federal Elections Commission. That consisted of donations from two California residents and one Pennsylvania resident. Hamid contributed $34,968 to his own campaign.
John Buffler
Democratic candidate John Buffler, a rocket scientist, told The Center Square that he is concerned about the rising cost of living in California. He pointed to inflation as a main driver of the state’s unaffordability crisis.
“This is where the government has to step in and do some cost-cutting efforts of making things affordable for the people,” Buffler said. “This is where the market failed and the government has to step up. Food production, food costs – that’s mainly comes from surging from Big Agra.”
Buffler also said the rising cost of gas in California is largely due to costs passed onto customers by oil and gas companies. He said the U.S. could drive down prices at the pump by refining its own oil – something Republican lawmakers have been pushing for in recent months, as shown by previous reporting by The Center Square.
“We already have the infrastructure and pipelines in place,” Buffer said. “The refineries in California, they’re very old, so that just goes to show that if we’re going to keep super-old refineries up that are definitely the biggest polluters of all, that we could step in, make something brand-new and refine better.”
California’s redistricting, which the state’s voters approved with the passage of Proposition 50, was followed by several other states’ similar efforts. That election was the wrong move, Buffler said.
“Texas started it, and California doubled down,” Buffler said. “I’m very mad at this entire redistricting, every single aspect of it.”
Federal budget cuts enacted under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the federal government’s budget that passed in July 2025, cut billions of dollars from taxpayer-funded programs in California, including food benefits programs and Medicaid, referred to as Medi-Cal in California. Buffler said he wants to see more funding allocated to essential programs people rely on.
“We use taxes as the mechanism to fund schools, roads, CalFresh, all the things that keep the mechanics of society going,” Buffler said. “We need to actually fund these things. Why must my school be worse because the people around me don’t have as much money?”
The Federal Elections Commission did not have any campaign finance information about Buffler.
Scott Wiener
While state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, did not respond to The Center Square’s request for an interview, he is one of the most prominent Democrats in the District 11 race. During his nine years in the state Senate, Wiener has authored legislation that made it a misdemeanor to knowingly spread HIV, prohibited the disclosure of a person’s immigration status in court, made changes to conservatorships for mentally ill or substance-addicted individuals and enact protections for those seeking gender-affirming care, among other bills.
The longtime San Francisco resident also has voted in favor of providing gender-affirming care to foster youth in California and creating a vision care services health care plan with provisions to reduce fraud. He also supported a measure that designated HIV care providers as primary service providers, although it was ultimately vetoed by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown. Wiener also voted in favor of a 2019 law that streamlined the construction of supportive housing developments, and he has voted in support of further regulating artificial intelligence technology.
Wiener has a total of $3.506 million in total contributions through May 19, according to the Federal Elections Commission. The largest contributions are in the amount of $7,000, with three of those coming from political donation site ActBlue, which allows supporters of a political campaign to contribute money to their chosen candidate.
The Youth Save Democracy Political Action Committee and the Carpenters Legislative Improvement Committee United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners each gave Wiener $5,000. Equality Political Action Committee and Equality California Federal PAC also gave Wiener $5,000 each.
Other candidates in the race
Other candidates in the District 11 race include Connie Chan, a current member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, who on Monday clinched a highly sought-after endorsement from Pelosi herself.
“I know and love this district,” Pelosi said in the video announcing her endorsement of Chan. “I know the Congress, and I know Connie. I’m proud to endorse Democrat, Connie Chan, and ask you to join me in electing her to Congress.”
Chan did not respond to The Center Square’s request for an interview in recent weeks.
Chan has received $457,617.10 in campaign contributions as of May 19, according to the Federal Elections Commission. Several groups gave $5,000 each to Chan’s campaign, including the Unite Here Tip Campaign Committee, UA Union Plumbers & Pipefitters Vote! PAC, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers PAC, Elect Democratic Women, CAPA21-Federal, American Federation of Teachers AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education and Aspire PAC.
Democratic candidate Saikat Chakrabarti, former chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, wasn’t available for an interview.
Two other Democratic candidates, Keith Freedman and Gregory Haynes, did not respond to The Center Square’s requests for interviews.
Voting centers will be open May 23 to June 1 (hours vary according to county) and 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. June 2, Election Day. For more information, go to the secretary of state’s website, sos.ca.gov. Early election results will be published on the evening of June 2 at www.thecentersquare.com/california.
