A mysterious van is targeting S.F. congressional candidate Saikat Chakrabarti. Here's who's behind it

He once dressed up as a "Styrofoam monster" to praise former Mayor London Breed's environmental record when she was a city supervisor.

He later stood outside now-Mayor Daniel Lurie's campaign launch, holding a sign that read "my cat is more qualified than Dan."

Now, San Francisco political provocateur Conor Johnston appears to be linked to another stunt: a mysterious van emblazoned with a critical message about Saikat Chakrabarti, an insurgent candidate running to succeed Rep. Nancy Pelosi in Congress. The van has been spotted this month parked near Golden Gate Park, the Twin Peaks area and even a Chakrabarti campaign office.

"Where does SAIKAT live?" asked a message on a sign affixed to the top of the Chevrolet, which was decorated in a similar style as Chakrabarti's campaign materials. The purported answer to that question was plastered on the side and back of the van: "Saikat lives in Maryland!"

The van's message was a reference to a 2025 San Francisco Standard report that revealed Chakrabarti, a wealthy former tech engineer, had declared a Maryland home his primary residence when he bought it in 2018. While Chakrabarti has said he acquired the house for his parents and never actually lived there, the East Coast home became a line of attack from Sen. Scott Wiener, the presumed frontrunner in the Congressional race, and his backers.

Wiener and Abundant Future, a Wiener-aligned super PAC funded by tech industry leaders and other wealthy donors, have publicly blasted Chakrabarti as a carpetbagger ill suited to represent San Francisco in the House. But whoever was responsible for the van remained unknown.

Until now.

The Chronicle confirmed with the California Department of Motor Vehicles that the van is registered to someone whose legal name and birthday matches that of Johnston, a longtime supporter of Wiener's. Johnston declined to comment, as did the Wiener campaign. Abundant Future couldn't be reached for comment.

The van illustrates one of the central conflicts animating San Francisco's first open Congressional race in nearly four decades. Chakrabarti, a former chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, appears to be gaining traction with voters as he spends millions of dollars of his own money to frame himself as a champion of progressive causes.

But Wiener and other local political leaders contend that Chakrabarti is a bad choice to succeed Pelosi partly because he hasn't spent enough time in San Francisco - a charge that Chakrabarti vehemently denies.

"This city is home. It's been home for a long time," Chakrabarti said in a recent interview. "Like most San Franciscans, I'm not part of the local political establishment. But I've also had the opportunity to work in federal politics. I've worked on the political side of it; I've worked inside Congress. I've worked on the policy side of it; I've spent over a decade trying to figure out what the problems are nationally. And that's why I'm running for Congress."

Chakrabarti told the Chronicle that he believed the van broke the law by not openly disclosing any funding sources, and he urged Wiener to "at least talk to" whoever was behind the car and "have them take it down." Chakrabarti didn't know about Johnston's connection to the car at the time of his interview with the Chronicle.

Whether the van was required to disclose the source of its funding may depend on exactly where the money came from, said Sean McMorris, a transparency, ethics and accountability program manager at California Common Cause. If a PAC was involved, that would require a financial disclaimer on the car, he said. But the requirements are less clear if the van and its messaging was paid for by an individual who wasn't coordinating with a campaign or third-party committee, McMorris said.

Part of the issue is that the van doesn't feature any explicit "magic" language that directly urges voters to cast ballots in a certain way, McMorris said, adding that the state Fair Political Practices Commission would be the ultimate arbiter. Such language would include phrasing telling people to "vote for, elect, or defeat" a specific candidate, he said.

"The intent is surely to convey that voters need to vote a certain way, but … they're not using the magic words," McMorris said. "It may or may not require disclosure."

Johnston, the person to whom the van appears to be registered, has a reputation for theatrics. Before he became a political operative, he ran with bulls, swam with sharks and bungee jumped off a high rise, according to a 2019 profile.

Having served as Breed's chief of staff when she was a city supervisor, Johnston was one of her fiercest defenders throughout her time at City Hall. He has been referred to as Breed's "guard dog" and was declared the "biggest mayoral race troll" by SF Weekly in 2018. He has since built a career as a retail cannabis entrepreneur.

Johnston also knows Wiener, who was an ally of Breed's when she was in office.

In 2016, when Wiener was running his first campaign for state Senate, Johnston penned an op-ed for the San Francisco Examiner in which he urged voters to back Wiener, who he called "a tireless champion for his constituents, his community and San Francisco's progressive values." When Wiener kicked off the door-knocking efforts for his Congressional campaign in January, Johnston was there, according to a photo Wiener posted on Instagram. But Johnston isn't officially involved with Wiener's Congressional bid, either as a paid staffer or volunteer, according to the campaign.

The van targeting Chakrabarti made no mention of Wiener as it moved to different spots around San Francisco this month. But that didn't stop Chakrabarti's supporters from speculating that the vehicle had a connection to Wiener or his boosters.

Last week, the van was parked just up the block from a new Castro campaign office that Chakrabarti had just opened. The car came up when Chakrabarti spoke to supporters inside the office and decried the influence of wealthy donors who had lined up behind Wiener. When Chakrabarti mentioned "multiple corporate super PACs that are running against this campaign," the crowd booed.

"They're outside!" someone shouted.

"It must be true if you read it on a van," Chakrabarti joked with a chuckle. The audience laughed along.

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