Bilal Mahmood, an entrepreneur and son of Pakistani immigrants, also seeks to become the first South Asian supervisor. Chisti is running to replace outgoing Supervisor Ahsha Safaí in District 11, while Mahmood is running against Supervisor Dean Preston in District 5.

Two South Asians appear to be the front-runners in the race for the school board: Supryia Ray and Parag Gupta, the latter of whom in March won a seat on the Democratic County Central Committee. Meanwhile, Chisti’s younger sister Aliya Chisti is a City College of San Francisco board trustee running for reelection.

Other influential South Asian activists are making waves outside of elected office, including Kanishka Cheng, who founded the moderate political group TogetherSF, and Sachin Agarwal, co-founder of GrowSF.

“There are more South Asians living in San Francisco and in tech than there used to be,” Cheng, a Sri Lankan refugee, told The Standard. “They can only run if there is a base of votes for them, because identity politics is still at play.”