If your streaming queue has started to feel like a campaign rally, you're not alone. San Francisco's primary season is heating up fast, and the sheer volume of political advertising — particularly from state Senate candidate Saikat Chakrabarti — has reached a saturation point that's testing even the most engaged voters.

As one local put it bluntly: "Every single commercial break is a Saikat ad. It's incredibly annoying." Another resident narrowed it down even further: "Because of all those ads on Tubi. It's simply too much."

Chakrabarti, the former chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has been spending big to blanket the airwaves ahead of the primary. But there's a problem with the carpet-bombing approach: it's generating as much backlash as it is name recognition. Anti-Saikat sentiment has surged online, with residents noting that AOC herself has conspicuously declined to endorse her former staffer. One SF resident offered a sharp read on the situation: "Saikat's entire brand is built on attacking Democrats instead of attacking Trump. The absolute last thing AOC needs right now is to endorse a friendly-fire liability."

Meanwhile, state Sen. Scott Wiener — the frontrunner with an actual legislative record in Sacramento — seems content to let Chakrabarti's overexposure do the opposition research for him. It's a reasonable strategy, though some supporters wish he'd go on offense more aggressively.

Over in District 4, things are even more telling. At a recent supervisorial debate hosted at the United Irish Cultural Center, incumbent Supervisor Alan Wong — appointed by Mayor Daniel Lurie after the messy Beya Alcaraz resignation — simply didn't show up. No explanation. No comment. His opponents happily filled the vacuum, turning the evening into a referendum on Wong's ties to Lurie and the PAC money flowing from the mayor's allies into Wong's campaign.

Here's the thing about both of these races: voters can smell inauthenticity. Whether it's a candidate who won't show up to defend his record or one who thinks he can buy his way into office with Tubi ads, San Franciscans deserve better than politics-by-saturation. The primary is weeks away. Spend your ad dollars wisely — or better yet, spend your time making an actual case for why you deserve the job.