Josh Kraft, the nonprofit leader who sought to unseat Mayor Michelle Wu in a campaign built on calling out her failings, said Thursday that he was dropping out of the race, ending an ugly rivalry and closing out a longshot challenge as he all but handed the incumbent a second term.
Just two days after finishing nearly 50 points behind Wu in the preliminary election, and after conferring with friends, family, and campaign team, Kraft told WCVB in an interview Thursday evening that he would suspend his campaign and devote his time to serving Boston in other ways.
“I got into this to make an impact, as I’ve done my whole life, build a sense of community to make change for the greater good,” Kraft said. “When I kept looking at the next eight weeks, the negativity, and all that it was going to be about, I realized, ‘Wow, I can do more.’ I can make a better impact for the residents of the city of Boston.”
In a lengthy post on Instagram Thursday evening, Kraft added he would redirect his campaign resources as well as “additional funds” to address the crises of homelessness and addiction at Mass. and Cass, working with organizations such as The Phoenix, a recovery community, and the Gavin Foundation, an addiction treatment center. He also pledged to “revitalize” a lapsed prison reentry program known as Operation Exit.
Kraft said he would “launch this effort” with $3 million and “work towards setting up a recovery campus.”
“We could spend the next eight weeks politicking — with harmful rhetoric or nasty attack ads,” he wrote. “Or we could get back to what really matters.”
The son of billionaire Patriots owner Robert Kraft, he announced his bid in February to great fanfare. Given business leaders’ frustration with Wu, Kraft’s ties to the city after his decades of work with the Boys and Girls Club of Boston, and his deep pockets, Kraft was seen as a candidate with the potential to bring a real fight to the popular incumbent.
But his announcement proved the high-water mark of excitement for Kraft. Despite pouring millions into the race — both his own money and that of an affiliated super PAC — Kraft was unable to persuade voters to change course from a mayor most residents like, all the more so as she continued to defy President Trump, who is deeply unpopular in Boston. Even though Kraft and the PAC ran television ads that touted his record and took aim at Wu’s flaws, polling showed his favorability ratings had declined, an ominous walkup to his disastrous showing in Tuesday’s primary.
His campaign suffered from repeated shakeups and missteps, including being publicly chastised by prominent national Democrats for unauthorized fund-raising pushes that featured their names and likenesses. Just days before Tuesday’s election, Kraft parted ways with two of his campaign’s most influential advisers, hardly a sign of confidence.
Kraft received a mere 23 percent of the vote to Wu’s 72 percent, a 49 percentage point blowout that stands out in local political history.
Wu won all 22 of the city’s wards and 264 of its 275 precincts, an even stronger showing than her decisive victory in the final election four years ago when she was first elected mayor. She won Kraft’s home precinct in the North End; all the precincts in West Roxbury, a more conservative corner of the city that was seen as friendlier ground for her opponent; and all the precincts in the most diverse neighborhoods, where Kraft had worked to make inroads in communities of color.
Kraft “just didn’t do all that well anywhere,” said David Hopkins, professor of political science at Boston College. “You can certainly point to some neighborhoods that he would have needed to carry to be close to the mayor in the citywide count, and he just fell far short.”
Under state law, Kraft has until Monday to remove his name from the ballot. It was not immediately clear whether the next highest vote-getter, Domingos DaRosa, could then qualify for the ballot; city officials were not able to answer that question Thursday.
Signs Kraft might exit the race had been accumulating since his disappointing showing.
He pledged at his election-night event that he would forge ahead, but his campaign quickly went dark. He did not announce any public events Wednesday or Thursday or address the media, a highly unusual silence from a candidate entering the final leg of a general election.
On Thursday at 7 p.m., he was scheduled to speak at a meeting of the North End/Waterfront Residents Association. Instead, around that time, the WCVB interview went live and Kraft posted on Instagram he would exit the race.
Kraft also called Wu around 7 p.m. to share the news with her directly.
Wu said in a statement Thursday night that she respected Kraft’s decision and thanked him “for caring about our city deeply enough to want to make it better.”
“We are going to continue, over the next two months and beyond, to keep engaging our community members about the critical work in front of us and how we keep making Boston a safe, welcoming home for everyone,” Wu said.
Kraft’s decision to exit the race all but ensures Wu’s reelection. And her wide margin of victory brings with it a glut of political capital that she can today spend more freely. For example, with her own race well in hand, Wu could devote the next few months to ensuring the reelection of City Council allies such as Henry Santana, analysts said this week. The effective end of the campaign could also free the mayor up to boost her national profile as a counterweight to Trump, or to renew her push at the State House for city priorities such as rent control.
Despite the result, Kraft said on social media Thursday that he was proud his campaign had elevated important issues and “gave voice to those too often left out.”
“We challenged the status quo,” he wrote. “We made a difference.”
“It has never been about Josh Kraft or Michelle Wu,” he added. “It has always been about the future of Boston.”
Niki Griswold and Adrian Walker of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Emma Platoff can be reached at emma.platoff@globe.com. Follow her @emmaplatoff.
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