Let's start with the incumbent. Kevin Mullin is your classic status-quo Democrat — a former aide to Jackie Speier who inherited the seat and has proceeded to do roughly nothing memorable with it. He talks a progressive game while cashing PAC checks and voting to fund the very agencies and policies his base supposedly opposes. One SF resident who attended a recent Mullin town hall in San Mateo put it bluntly: he's "a thoroughly unimpressive individual" and "basically just a nepo baby."

Harsh? Maybe. But when your incumbent's biggest selling point is name recognition from the person who held the seat before him, the criticism writes itself.

On the challenger side, things get more interesting. Anthony Dang is a Marine Corps vet who served in Iraq, worked oversight at the Pentagon, went to Harvard, and claims to take zero PAC money. That's a compelling résumé, even if his platform leans more progressive than we'd prefer. At minimum, he brings real-world accountability experience — something Congress could desperately use.

Mantosh Kumar offers a different flavor: an engineer and former corporate professional running as a pragmatic centrist-ish alternative to Mullin. He's positioning himself as the design-thinking candidate, applying systems logic to policy. One local who met with Kumar said they were "impressed" and that he and his wife "seem like solid citizens." Not exactly a ringing revolution, but in a field like this, competence counts.

Then there's Charles Hoelter, the lone Republican, whose campaign website appears to have been written by ChatGPT on a bad day. And Jim Garrity, a former law enforcement officer running No Party Preference who doesn't appear to have a campaign website at all. Bold strategy.

Here's what matters: incumbency shouldn't be a lifetime appointment, and "not as bad as the other guy" isn't a platform. Southern SF deserves a representative who actually earns the seat — not one who just warmed it. Do your homework before the primary. This one's closer than you think.