The race for California’s 11th Congressional District is heating up, with Scott Wiener and Connie Chan advancing from the primary to the November election. On Friday morning, I noticed a tweet about Scott Wiener setting up a presence in the Richmond District, not too far away from our place. I decided to stop by and check it out. Sure enough, I saw a space painted with a rainbow and a giraffe on California St. and 5th Ave., across the street from The Richfield coffee shop.

Earlier this year, Wiener finished first in the primary with 41% of the vote to Chan’s 30%. SF Standard reported on an internal Wiener campaign memo, which claimed Chan "massively underperformed" in her own district. That said, the Wiener team believes the race is far from over and they still have a lot of work to do. Hence the new location in the heart of the Richmond District.

Inside, I spoke with Lian Chang, a member of the campaign team, about the new office. She told me a bit about their plans and said they will be in the neighborhood from now until the election. According to the events calendar on the wall, the team will be very busy in August. Volunteers will be present at the Clement Street Farmers Market every Sunday, and they will be hosting coffee hours every Friday morning. One event that caught my eye was an August 20th talk called "The Past, Present and Future of Housing in the Richmond."

I noticed the exterior of the office features a quote from Dolores Huerta: “I know the difference between a politician who talks about justice and one who fights for it!” This quote was taken from an endorsement the campaign posted to Instagram, in which Huerta says Wiener "never flinches when it comes to standing up to Trump" and closes with "Sí se puede — and with leaders like Scott in Congress, we will."

The candidates are set to debate again on October 1st, this time head to head. But some think that we need many more debates. At the office, I ran into Alan Mirviss, who recently wrote a letter to the SF Chronicle on the subject. He argued that head-to-head debates may be voters' only chance to judge Chan's style and substance "without the interference of handlers and talking points."

Here at The Fogline, we originally didn’t plan to cover politics at all, but after attending the KQED Congressional debate and researching the policies, we found ourselves agreeing with the need to increase housing supply and have been critical of Connie Chan’s record on this issue. However, we’ve had our differences with Wiener too, particularly on the topic of increased police surveillance.

We look forward to attending the debate in October and making our decision in November. In the meantime, we’ll keep you posted on what we see and hear as the race unfolds here in the neighborhood.