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Mayor Michelle Wu and challenger Josh Kraft are both officially moving onto the Nov. 4 general election for mayor — but the sitting mayor has a big advantage.
According to Boston’s unofficial election results, Wu dominated yesterday’s mayoral preliminary, beating Kraft by a margin of 72% to 23%, with more than triple the number of votes. (Turns out that recent poll was on the mark.)
WBUR’s Simón Rios reports that Kraft pledged to “keep fighting” during a rally last night in South Boston as the results came in — and he certainly has the money to do it. But if history is any indication, closing that gap will be a tough fight.
Preliminary precedent: You’ve probably heard it before that no incumbent Boston mayor has lost reelection since 1949. But there’s another noteworthy streak: over the past half century, the winner of Boston’s mayoral preliminary has always gone on to victory in November. And since 2001, there have been three comparable election cycles in which sitting Boston mayors were on the ballot in the preliminary. Each time, they maintained their double-digit margins in the general election:
- 2017: Mayor Marty Walsh beat City Councilor Tito Jackson 63% to 29% in what was effectively a two-way preliminary. In the general election, Jackson only picked up a few percentage points; Walsh won the finale 65% to 34%.
- 2009: In Tom Menino’s final reelection campaign, Councilor Michael Flaherty actually closed the gap significantly after finishing second in the preliminary (24% to Menino’s 51%). But it was only because Flaherty teamed up with the preliminary’s third-place finisher, fellow Councilor Sam Yoon. The Flaherty-Yoon joint ticket still lost to Menino in the general, 42% to 57%.
- 2001: After beating City Councilor Peggy Davis-Mullen by a margin of 73% to 23% in the preliminary, Menino held firm with a 76% to 24% win in November.
- Fun fact: The last time a Boston mayoral candidate won the general election after not finishing first in the preliminary was 1967. That’s when Kevin White won his first term as mayor over school desegregation opponent Louise Day Hicks. Hicks had been the clear winner of the 10-way preliminary with 28% of the vote, but White was able to consolidate support and win the general, 53% to 46%.
Down ballot: Cross country running coach Said Ahmed and housing attorney Rev. Miniard Culpepper finished as the leading two vote-getters in the 11-way race to replace disgraced District 7 City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson. But just barely. With 100% of precincts reporting, the city’s unofficial results show Ahmed and Culpepper eeking past the next leading three finishers by just a few dozen votes. (Five candidates got between 14% and 16%.) Ahmed and Culpepper are immediately set to face off in November.
- Click here for more on all of the City Council preliminary election results, including the slightly narrowed down race for the four at-large seats.
In other news:
On Beacon Hill: Gov. Maura Healey announced a new move yesterday to speed up housing construction. Her office unveiled draft regulations to dramatically cut down the time it takes many multi-family housing developments to go through a state-mandated environmental analysis to as little as 30 days.
- Why? Currently, many projects in the Boston area are required to complete what’s known as an “Environmental Impact Report,” which currently takes a minimum of nine months to a year, and can add hundreds of thousands of dollars to a project’s costs, according to the state’s Commission on Unlocking Housing Production. That’s partially because of a 2021 climate law signed by Gov. Charlie Baker, which expanded the definition of “environmental justice” populations and the need for such reviews. But according to the commission, the additional time and costs have resulted in “less housing production in areas where it is needed most.”
- immediately what? Healey’s new regulations would allow developers to complete a much simpler “Environmental Notification Form,” which takes only around 30 to 60 days — if their projects meet certain criteria around things like density, energy efficiency, climate resiliency and utility access. Officials are taking public comment on the proposed changes — which have support from some of the state’s leading housing and environmental advocacy groups — through Oct. 31.
Another one: Tufts Universityis making like its neighbors in Cambridge by zeroing out the rate of tuition for a wide swath of students. The Somerville/Medford-based university announced yesterday it will fully cover the cost of tuition for students from households making less than $150,000 annually, starting next fall.
- The move comes after Harvard and MIT began fully covering tuition costs this fall for students from households making less than $200,000 a year.
P.S.— Itching to secure your seat to see Word Cup games at Gillette — er, Boston Stadium — next summer? The first window to begin the process of buying tickets opens today, but only for VISA cardholders. (The rest of us have to wait until next month.) NPR has more on how the multi-phase ticket process works.
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