Wu and nonprofit leader Josh Kraft were expected to advance to the general election in November, according to public polls. Two other candidates, activist Domingos DaRosa and perennial candidate Robert Cappucci, had drawn minimal support in public surveys of the race.
The biggest question in the mayor’s race on Tuesday was not who would emerge as the leading two-getters, but what the margin of victory would be between them. Kraft has sought to manage expectations, saying he hoped to finish within 15 percentage points behind Wu; a strong showing could help him reshape the final months of the campaign and persuade donors to get behind him. Meanwhile, large advantages in public surveys — a recent poll found Wu leading Kraft by 50 percentage points — have set expectations sky-high for the mayor, meaning a more modest margin of victory could be seen as a sign of weakness for her.
The mayor’s race so far has been ugly and expensive. Kraft, the son of billionaire Patriots owner Robert Kraft, has poured millions of dollars of his own money into the campaign, spending much of it on ubiquitous television ads. An aligned super PAC has also spent millions on attack ads against the mayor, criticizing her record on housing, as well as her spending on the controversial renovations to White Stadium, which the city is making into a new home for a professional women’s soccer team as well as Boston Public Schools athletes.
Kraft argues Wu is out of touch and has failed to address the city’s most pressing challenges, such as rising rents and struggling schools.
Wu’s rhetoric on Kraft has been just as sharp. She has called him a carpetbagger trying to “purchase” his way into office in Boston, and noted that he has been a city resident for less than two years. (He moved to his condo in the North End in October 2023 after living most of his life in the nearby suburbs, though he spent decades working in the city with the Boys and Girls Club of Boston.) She argues he lacks the government experience necessary to lead a city under siege from the White House. President Trump and others in his administration have taken direct aim at Boston, particularly over its immigration policies.
After she cast her vote Wednesday morning holding her baby daughter Mira, Wu encouraged voters to make their voices heard and called Boston as an aspirational place.
“This is a city that people look to when they want to understand what’s possible,” she said. “We are proof of what’s possible when people come together.”
Kraft, for his part, projected confidence as he greeted voters outside a polling place in South Boston on Tuesday.
“Every neighborhood we go to, regardless of socioeconomics, race, ethnicity, we hear and feel the same thing: People want change, and we hear them, and we want to capitalize on that,” Kraft said.
Kraft got a boost on the eve of Election Day, when he won the endorsement of Annissa Essaibi George, the former city councilor who lost the 2021 mayor’s race to Wu.
A lopsided result would be nothing new for the city. In 2017, when then-Mayor Martin J. Walsh sought his second term, he won 63 percent of the vote in the September preliminary, besting his nearest competitor by 34 percentage points.
Candidates and strategists will also be closely watching for precinct-level data showing where each candidate is weakest and strongest. Kraft has made a point of prioritizing outreach to Boston’s Black voters, for example, and argued Wu has lost touch with the city’s communities of color.
Turnout, of course, will be a major factor. As of 6 p.m., 76,525 voters had cast ballots, according to city data, for a turnout of 18 percent. By contrast, in the more hotly contested mayoral preliminary election in September 2021, just under 25 percent of voters cast ballots.
One voter who did participate was Joanie Tobin, 45, who voted for change early Tuesday at the Yawkey Boys and Girls Club in Roxbury.
A Nubian Square resident, Tobin said one of her most important issues is displacement within her neighborhood.
When casting her ballot for mayor, she said she specifically considered housing and development.
“I did not vote for Mayor Wu,” Tobin said. “Primarily because of Mass. and Cass and her ability to handle the day-to-day operations of the city. And Franklin Park, White Stadium, the over-policing.”
Christopher Razza, a 32-year-old construction worker and member of the Laborers Local 22 union, held up a sign proclaiming the union’s support for Kraft outside of East Boston High School Tuesday evening.
The lifelong Bostonian said that under Wu, there has been a slowdown in construction projects, leaving many of his fellow workers struggling to make ends meet. Razza said he cast his vote for Kraft because of his pledge to spur development.
“It’s just time for a change,” he said. “She showed us what she could do for us, and she hasn’t done nothing for us. … Someone else is promising work. That’s what we need.”
Some voters, by contrast, said they went to the polls because they were motivated to show Kraft the city is not behind him.
“I think Mayor Wu is doing an incredible job, and I am offended at what I’ve heard Kraft saying,” said Amy Battisti-Ashé, a nurse from Jamaica Plain. “I just wanted to be super sure that she would crush him like a bug.”
Taylor Marble, 45, had the national political environment weighing heavily on his mind when he cast his vote for Wu Tuesday.
“I’m very proud of Mayor Wu and her resistance to Trump and ICE and the deportations,” Marble said, praising her “gumption.”
Marble hasn’t always been thrilled with Wu’s leadership, he said, but that wasn’t enough to push him to vote for Kraft.
“We don’t need any more billionaires in government,” Marble said.
Niki Griswold, Mara Kardas-Nelson, and Spencer Buell of the Globe staff, and Globe correspondents Sadaf Tokhi and Katarina Schmeiszer contributed to this report.
Emma Platoff can be reached at emma.platoff@globe.com. Follow her @emmaplatoff.
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