Saikat Chakrabarti, the former Stripe engineer and one-time chief of staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, finished a distant third in California’s 11th Congressional District Democratic primary on June 2. The seat, left open by Nancy Pelosi’s departure, went to a runoff between State Sen. Scott Wiener and Supervisor Connie Chan, both of whom benefited from political machinery that Chakrabarti’s nearly $10 million personal war chest couldn’t overcome.
The numbers tell the story
Wiener led the field with 41.3% of the vote, collecting 44,521 ballots. Chan followed with 28.6%, or 30,887 votes. Chakrabarti managed just 14.9%, translating to 16,118 votes.
For a candidate who self-funded to the tune of close to $10 million, most of it drawn from Stripe equity, that’s a brutal cost-per-vote ratio. Roughly $620 per vote, for the math-inclined.
Pelosi endorsed Chan. AOC did not endorse Chakrabarti, her former chief of staff.
