SACRAMENTO, Calif. — State Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who is one of California’s fiercest critics of President Donald Trump, will run for the congressional seat held by former House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

A longtime associate of Wiener’s told the Los Angeles Times that the state legislator recently told him he planned to run for Pelosi’s seat in 2026. Several San Francisco elected officials will announce their support for Wiener at his campaign launch, according to the person, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly.

Erik Mebust, a spokesperson for Wiener, declined comment.

News of Wiener’s campaign was first reported by the San Francisco Standard. The news outlet said Wiener will make a formal announcement next week.

Wiener, 55, has already declared his intention to eventually run for the seat held by Pelosi and has raised $1 million through an exploratory committee. But he previously indicated that he would wait until Pelosi, who was first elected in 1987, stepped down.

That calculus changed, according to the Standard, when tech executive Saikat Chakrabarti, a progressive candidate who oversaw New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s successful 2018 campaign for Congress, entered the race for Pelosi’s seat.

Pelosi, 85, hasn’t indicated whether will she run again. If she does seek another term, her age could be a factor at a time when younger Democrats are eager to see a new wave of leaders.

Pelosi was among several top politicians who persuaded then-President Joe Biden to forgo a second term after widespread concerns about his age.

Ian Krager, spokesperson for Pelosi, declined to comment on her plans. He released a statement Friday re-affirming Pelosi’s support for Proposition 50, which will be on the ballot in California’s Nov. 4 special election.

The measure would redraw California’s congressional districts in favor of Democrats and was pushed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Democratic leaders after Trump urged Texas to reconfigure the state’s districts to elect five more Republicans to Congress, part of an effort to keep the GOP in control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Speaker Pelosi is fully focused on her mission to win the Yes on 50 special election in California on November 4th,” said Krager. “She urges all Californians to join in that mission on the path to taking back the House for the Democrats.”

Longtime Democratic activist Christine Pelosi, the daughter of Pelosi, has also been viewed as a possible candidate. She didn’t respond to requests for comment Friday.

Before his election to the state Legislature, Wiener served as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and worked as a deputy city attorney in the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office.

If elected, Wiener would be the first openly gay person to represent San Francisco in Congress. The 6-foot-7 politician is viewed as a far-left representative in Sacramento, but is thought of as a moderate in San Francisco because of that city’s progressive leanings.

He draws strong support from real estate interests and California’s YIMBY (“Yes In My Backyard”) housing movement, as well as military veterans wanting to decriminalize psychedelic drugs for therapeutic use.

A member of the California LGBTQ+ Caucus, Wiener is a a leading advocate for LGBTQ+ social justice issues and spearheaded a law directing judges to decide whether certain people engaging in consensual anal or oral sex with a minor age 14 or older must register as sex offenders. A state law already allowed that discretion in cases of consensual penile-vaginal sex.

But he is likely best-known in California for his strident pro-housing stance.

Newsom last week signed Wiener’s Senate Bill 79, one of the most ambitious state-imposed housing efforts in recent memory. The bill upzones areas across California, overriding local zoning laws to allow taller, denser projects near public transit.

The bill was fiercely opposed by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other L.A. leaders who want to retain power over housing decisions.

When it comes to Trump, Wiener regularly spars on social media with the president’s supporters, and has received death threats. Another one of his recent bills, to prohibit on-duty law enforcement officers from masking their faces during immigration raids, was also signed into law by Newsom.

After Trump this week suggested that National Guard troops should be deployed in San Francisco, Wiener told the president to “stay the hell out of San Francisco.”

In June, he referred to the immigration raids in California as “police state fascism” and last week called Vice President JD Vance “ a truly vile person” on X after the vice president trolled Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

Republican leaders on Friday used news of Wiener’s congressional campaign to attack Pelosi and the Democratic Party. Christian Martinez, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, claimed that Democrats are “too busy fighting each other to fight for working Americans.”

The “left’s new generation doesn’t want to wait for Pelosi’s permission, they want power,” said Martinez.

(Staff writer Ana Ceballos contributed to this report.)

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