Bernie Sanders campaign and Brand New Congress In 2015, Chakrabarti joined the early stages of
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders's
presidential campaign. Of that decision, Chakrabarti told
Rolling Stone, "I wasn't entirely sure he had all the right solutions but I knew he was talking about the right problems." Together with Sheena Pakanati, he developed a messaging tool called Spoke which was released under the
MIT license. The software helped volunteers find other volunteers who lived nearby and helped coordinate "millions" of volunteers to call into battleground states, multiplying the effort of local volunteers and staff. During the Sanders campaign, Chakrabarti worked closely with
Alexandra Rojas and Corbin Trent to stage campaign events around the country. Chakrabarti told
Rolling Stone that he often heard voters express strong concerns about Congress: "people would say, 'How's he going to get anything done? We just saw what Congress did to Obama for the last eight years, they’re gonna do the same thing to Bernie.'" As a result, in the spring of 2016, Chakrabarti (together with Rojas and Trent) co-founded the
Brand New Congress political action committee, to recruit 400 new candidates for Congress. The group received many applications and recruited 12 candidates, of whom Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won a seat in Congress.
Justice Democrats In early 2017, after Trump's election, Chakrabarti,
Zack Exley, a former fellow Bernie Sanders presidential campaign executive,
Cenk Uygur of
The Young Turks and
Kyle Kulinski of
Secular Talk became co-founders of the
Justice Democrats. As Chakrabarti, Rojas, and Trent were less involved with Brand New Congress, they became leaders of the Justice Democrats. Activist strategies mobilized by Justice Democrats contributed greatly to
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's primary win, according to
The Intercept. Before U.S. Senator
Al Franken resigned, Chakrabarti went on record to push for his resignation and expressed his support for
Keith Ellison as his replacement.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chief of staff Chakrabarti was campaign manager for Ocasio-Cortez's unexpected primary victory over 10-term incumbent
Joe Crowley, and afterwards became her campaign chair. While her general election victory in the heavily Democratic district was considered a foregone conclusion, Chakrabarti leveraged her newfound high profile to campaign for other progressive candidates across the country. After she won the November 2018 general election, she appointed him as her chief of staff. In 2019, Chakrabarti was named to the
Politico Playbook power list to watch.
Green New Deal Chakrabarti led the Ocasio-Cortez staff and several progressive groups in writing the
Green New Deal resolution that was submitted to the
House of Representatives by Ocasio-Cortez and to the
Senate by
Ed Markey February 7, 2019.
The New Yorker quoted him as saying, "We spent the weekend learning how to put laws together. We looked up how to write resolutions." Together, he and Mahmood planned an environmental framework similar to the Green New Deal for California, including a
carbon tax to fund zero-interest loans for
green retrofits.
Amazon HQ2 withdrawal from Queens In February 2019, Chakrabarti appeared as a guest on
Bloomberg News to clarify Ocasio-Cortez's role in
Amazon's decision to pull its planned
HQ2 from
Long Island City, Queens, saying she objected to the process by which it had received its original deal, but had no specific animus toward the company. He stated that AOC's goal had been to see the local community more involved in discussions, but once community members joined the discussion, Amazon made the decision to withdraw. Chakrabarti elaborated further that Amazon would be welcome to return to the negotiating table under the condition that the company engage adequately with the local communities to be affected by the project.
Immigration reform Chakrabarti worked on the part of the Justice Democrats platform which included
abolishing ICE. To the question of whether a different agency should take its place, he replied "everyone has a different idea of what happens after". In a 2019 tweet, Chakrabarti wrote that the
New Democrats and
Blue Dog Caucus should be called "the New Southern Democrats" for voting to "enable a racist system". This was in response to Democratic representatives approving an aid package which included funding for southern border enforcement. The
House Democratic Caucus Twitter account, managed by
Hakeem Jeffries, objected to his referring to
Sharice Davids by name in these posts and attacked him for his perceived targeting of a
Native American woman and
person of color.
Resignation as chief of staff On August 2, 2019, Representative Ocasio-Cortez announced that Saikat Chakrabarti "has decided to leave the office to work with New Consensus to further develop plans for a Green New Deal."
Housing Chakrabarti supports an "all-of-the-above" approach to combat the
housing crisis in the United States. He has advocated cutting "
red tape to accelerate development", increasing funding "for low-income housing" and creating a federal agency to provide "low-interest financing to pay for home construction." Chakrabarti has also criticized the "tribal politics" surrounding the
housing and cost-of-living crises in
San Francisco, arguing that such dynamics have worsened these problems instead of encouraging engagement with fresh ideas.
2026 congressional campaign On February 5, 2025, Chakrabarti announced his candidacy for
California's 11th congressional district in 2026, challenging former House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi in the Democratic
primary. In his announcement, he affirmed his respect for Pelosi, but stated, "it's become clear to me that the Democratic Party needs new leadership," and added that Democratic congressional leaders were "paralyzed and unprepared" for the
second Trump presidency. On November 6, 2025, Pelosi announced that she would not be seeking re-election for her seat, leaving it open for the first time in 40 years.
State senator Scott Wiener and
supervisor Connie Chan also announced campaigns for the seat. In March 2026, Justice Democrats backed his campaign. ==Personal life==