Mayor Michelle Wu kicked off her campaign for reelection Saturday with a speech that took aim at the Trump administration’s antagonism toward Boston and her opponent Josh Kraft’s business-friendly candidacy.
“It feels like everything that makes Boston Boston is being threatened by an administration that is clearly threatened by who we are as a city,” Wu told a crowd of more than 1,200 gathered at the Boston Cyclorama in the South End. “That’s right, we’ve made serious challenges in this moment and now is not the time for a mayor who needs on the job training. And now, now is certainly not the time to hand the keys over to billionaires or developers.”
Wu’s frequent references to the Trump administration’s beef with Boston over the law barring police from conducting immigration enforcement drew thunderous applause from an audience made up largely of Black, Latino and Asian Americans. Members of SEIU 1199, SEIU 32 BJ, Local 26 Unite Here hotel workers and other largely immigrant groups mixed with city workers and department heads and progressive political activists — many of whom were returning from the anti-Trump rally at the Common and City Hall Plaza — in the Cyclorama pointing to what may form the Wu campaign’s army of volunteers.
The diversity of the turnout was thanks in part to the administration Wu has put together, said Dion Irish, chief of operations for the city.
“It’s certainly the most diverse administration I’ve been part of,” said Irish, who began in city government under Mayor Thomas Menino in 2001. “She has people of color in key roles, they have decision-making power and budgets that actually make things happen.”
Consultant and longtime political activist Jose C. Masso III, whose son Jose F. Masso is chief of Human Services for the city, wound up the crowd with a speech in support of Wu. Kicking off the event was musician and band leader Jorge Arce, who played Puerto Rican plena music.
“In the words of the great David Ortiz — Big Papi, ‘This is our effing city,’” Masso said, riling up the crowd. “Michelle Wu has our back. We’ve gotta have her back.”
Also present at the kickoff were a broad cross section of electeds of all stripes — U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Suffolk County Sheriff Steve Tompkins, Suffolk County Supreme Judicial Clerk Allison Cartwright, state Sen. Lydia Edwards, state reps. Jay Livingstone, Bill MacGregor, Aaron Michelwitz, Rob Consalvo, Chris Worrell, Mike Moran and the majority of the Boston City Council (not present were Ed Flynn, Erin Murphy, Tania Fernandes Anderson, Liz Breadon and Enrique Pepen).
No incumbent mayor in Boston has succumbed to a challenger since Michael Curley lost to John B. Hynes in 1949. To defeat Wu, Kraft may have to contend with an army of volunteers supplied by labor unions and city workers as well as endorsements from a slew of local elected officials.
As long as the White House continues its barrage of threats and insults aimed at Boston and its leadership, Kraft will also have to contend with the narrative that casts Wu as a defender of Boston’s people and values. Indeed, the running joke among politicos is that Trump administration officials who publicly criticize Wu should be reporting their activity as in-kind donations to Wu.
Wu, a Chicago native, who in her 2021 run for mayor faced criticism for being a carpet bagger, can now cast herself as the city’s chief defender. In her speech, she used the tagline “Here in Boston, we don’t back down” and used the word “fight” 11 times.
Kraft, in a statement sent to news media following Wu’s campaign kickoff, sought to keep the focus on Wu’s record, asserting that she has failed on her 2021 campaign promises, including enacting rent control, making the MBTA free, instituting a Green New Deal for Boston school buildings and restoring the city’s elected school committee.
“Lots of words, lofty claims, and victory laps on national issues is what Mayor Wu offered today, but what Bostonians are looking for is someone who is connected to their concerns and challenges and is focused on helping them,” Kraft’s statement read in part. “Mayor Wu has taken an ideology-first, results-second, approach to governing. The results? Record high rents and home prices, a 20% increase in city spending and a 10% residential tax increase while pledging to spend $100 million (“whatever it costs”) for White Stadium.
Inside the Cyclorama, political consultant Eldin Villafane said Wu’s campaign kickoff, replete with armies of union members, city workers and activists, presented a formidable snapshot of her nascent campaign.
“She’s strong,” he said. “She’s got that momentum going with this overarching political climate where in this city we’ve responded with, ‘We protect our own.’”
This article first appeared on The Flipside,
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