Boston Mayor Michelle Wu easily advanced to Boston’s final mayoral election Tuesday, winning the preliminary round in a landslide victory over challenger Josh Kraft, the former head of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston and son of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
Kraft advanced as well but was routed by Wu, whose campaign said she enjoyed a 48-point lead at about 11:30 p.m.. Two other candidates, activist Domingos DaRosa and perennial candidate Robert Cappucci, finished in the low single digits, according to results posted by the city of Boston, and failed to advance to the final election.
At an election-night rally at Adams Park in Roslindale, Wu declared victory at about 10 p.m., and drew a close connection between her well-documented clashes with the Trump Administration and her campaign against Kraft, who has denounced Trump but contributed several million dollars of his own money to fund his campaign for mayor.
This rhetorical maneuver was not unexpected: throughout the race, Wu has worked to link Kraft to both donors to his super PAC who have also given to Trump and donors to his own campaign who have Trump ties.
“The next 8 weeks are about more than the remaining two names on the ballot,” said Wu. “It’s a test of who we are. It’s a test of whether we believe in our city as a place of possibility and promise — whether Boston will keep going as a home for everyone. It’s a test of whether Boston can still be that beacon of freedom, whether 250 years later, with tyranny again at our door, whether Boston’s still got it.”
After pausing for the crowd’s applause and shouts of approval, Wu, who became the first woman and person of color elected mayor of Boston four years ago, continued.
“Today, you answered those questions loud and clear,” she said. “You sent a message to Josh Kraft, to Donald Trump, and to all their enablers. Boston is not for sale. Boston is not for sale and Boston will not be bullied.”
As robust as Wu’s margin of victory was, it did not come a surprise. Recent polling showed her leading Kraft by as much as fifty percentage points, an eyebrow-raising advantage even in a city where no incumbent mayor has lost a reelection bid since 1949.
Kraft — who has questioned Wu’s judgment and efficacy on everything from bike lanes to the ongoing renovation of White Stadium to homelessness and addiction in the area known as Mass and Cass — spoke before Wu took her victory lap. At the Ironworkers Local 7 Union Hall in Dorchester, he celebrated the campaign becoming a head-to-head, albeit longshot, race, to defeat Wu with a couple hundred supporters.
With less than 20 percent of the vote counted around 9:30 p.m., Kraft took the stage to the tune of Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion,” then struck both an optimistic and pugnacious tone about the path ahead.
“We are still in this race,” Kraft said to cheers and applause. “And we know the road ahead is not going to be easy, but neither is life in Boston for too many families.”
On stage, Kraft was flanked by Black community leaders including former State Senator Dianne Wilkerson, Bowdoin Geneva Main Streets executive director Haris Hardaway and re-entry advocate Anthony “Big Time” Seymour. His father, Patriots owner Robert Kraft, also appeared as Josh rallied the crowd.
“Throughout this campaign, Mayor Wu has shown that she doesn’t want to talk about her record, she wants to talk about [President] Donald Trump and she wants to run against Donald Trump,” Kraft said, adding that Wu has attempted to tie him to Trump unfairly.
Kraft bashed Wu as a mayor who “cares about the next step in their political careers [more] than they do about the issues facing Bostonians.”
After his 8-minute remarks, Kraft told reporters he would begin devising a strategy to close the gap Wednesday morning.
“Just keep working, grinding, sweat equity, never quit,” Kraft said.
Wu, for her part, seemed to relish the prospect of continuing the race come Wednesday morning.
“Our opponents are going to come harder, spend more, throw everything they’ve got at us,” she said near the end of her remarks at Adams Park in Roslindale, the Boston neighborhood she calls home. “But they don’t understand that Boston is not theirs to bully. They don’t understand that Boston will never be pushed around. And that don’t understand that we’re just getting started.”
