In San Francisco, progressives are looking east with envy.
Progressives have steadily lost influence in famously liberal San Francisco, unlike their counterparts in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani is ascendant. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
By Dustin Gardiner01/02/2026 02:00 PM EST
SAN FRANCISCO — If Zohran Mamdani represents the rise of progressive politics in America, San Francisco is fast becoming the deflating counterpoint for the left.
It isn’t just that liberal lion Nancy Pelosi is on her way out or that moderate Democrats, backed by wealthy tech investors, have trounced the left in election after election over the last five years. It’s that San Francisco progressives who have been lost in a fog here — paying the price for voters’ frustrations over street conditions, homelessness and a drug addiction epidemic — have seen liberals in another big city suddenly supplant them.