Unofficial tally gives mayor 72 percent as challenger lags badly
Mayor Michelle Wu surged to a resounding victory on Tuesday over Josh Kraft with a 49-point margin in a preliminary election turnout that has set the stage for a November general election for mayor in which the incumbent is a heavy favorite.
“You sent a message to Josh Kraft, to Donald Trump and to all their enablers: Boston is not for sale,” Wu told a large crowd that gathered to celebrate her victory on Monday night in Roslindale’s Adams Park. “Boston is not for sale, and Boston will not be bullied. And because we stand together, Boston will never be beaten.”
By late Tuesday night, it was clear that the margin of victory for Wu was beyond landslide territory. This was a shellacking. The 42-year-old first-term incumbent won 66,398 votes (72 percent) to Kraft’s 21,324 (23 percent). Runners-up Domingos DaRosa and Robert Cappucci combined for roughly 4 percent.
Wu won all of the city’s 22 wards, with Kraft edging her out only in 9 of 272 precincts citywide, including two in Dorchester’s Ward 16, a section of the city that often favors more conservative candidates.
The scene outside Florian Hall at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 9. Nathan Metcalf photo
Kraft notched notable wins at Florian Hall’s potent double-precinct in Neponset (16-12), where voters preferred the first-time candidate over the incumbent, 394-185. He also picked off another traditionally red-leaning precinct in Neponset – the Adams Street branch library, 16-9, where he netted 251 votes to Wu’s 132.
But in the other Ward 16 precinct that votes at the same library— 16-8— that result was reversed, with the mayor in the lead, 248-185.
Wu and Kraft tied 202-202 at the Neponset 16-10 precinct.
In the St. Mark’s area of Ward 16, precinct 3, Wu was the clear favorite over Kraft, 154-31.
In Savin Hill’s 13-10 bellwether at Cristo Rey School, Kraft gave Wu a run for her money, but fell short with 191 to Wu’s 252. The results in other parts of the ward were worse for the challenger. At the nearby Kit Clark Apartment’s 13-8 precinct, it was Wu 103, Kraft 41.
In Lower Mills, Wu defeated Kraft soundly in the double-precinct at the library on Richmond Street. The combined total: 405 to 118. The pro-Wu trend was consistent across most of Dorchester, Mattapan, Hyde Park, and Roxbury where voters often broke for her by a 3-1 margin, mirroring pre-election polls that showed Wu with a commanding lead.
Above, Mayor Wu talked to voters outside the Lilla G. Frederick School in Dorchester on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. Seth Daniel photo
The totals in favor of the mayor were even more lopsided in places like Jamaica Plain’s Curley K-8 school (Ward 19, precincts 1 and 3) where Wu pile-drove Kraft, 500 to 37.
At one of the heavy voting precincts at the Chittick School on the Hyde Park-Mattapan line (18-6), Wu posted 325 votes to Kraft’s 55. The precinct next door, 18-21, was not much better: Wu 244, Kraft 35.
And on it went without much variation in other quarters of the city. Despite the huge margin for Wu, Kraft spoke to a few hundred supporters who were packed into the Ironworkers Local 7 union hall in South Boston around 9:30 p.m.
In prepared remarks, the 57-year-old Kraft pledged: “Let me be clear: we are still in this race. Our campaign has put the biggest challenges facing Boston front and center and we have already moved the needle.”
Kraft seemed combative at times, saying, “Throughout this campaign, Mayor Wu has shown that she doesn’t want to talk about her record. She wants to talk about Donald Trump, and she wants to run against Donald Trump. She has tried to distract from her ineffectiveness on the issues that really matter to everyday Bostonians by attempting to unfairly tie me to Trump time and time again.
“I’ll say it again: it couldn’t be farther from the truth.”
Above, candidate Josh Kraft greeted voters outside Savin Hill’s 13-10 precinct at Cristo Rey School on Sept. 9, 2025. Seth Daniel photo
In an exchange with reporters after his remarks, Kraft was asked if there’s a realistic path forward.
“Listen, I believe in life there’s always a path. It’s just hard work and sweat equity.”
When asked what his plan was to close the huge gap, he said: “We’ll figure that out tomorrow.”
Turnout was part of the story on Tuesday. By noontime, voter turnout in Boston was just 11.6 percent — or 49,650 total ballots cast, according to Election officials.
By 6 p.m., the turnout had improved only to roughly 18 percent— or 76,525 voters. There are more than 460,000 registered voters in the city, based on a review of 2024 election data.
There was zero doubt ahead of Tuesday night’s unofficial results that the rest of the campaign would feature a head-to-head Wu-Kraft match-up on Nov. 4. Two other candidates—DaRosa and Cappucci— were also on the ballot, but neither attempted to raise the funds or visibility needed to be competitive in a race that featured two well-funded candidates, including an incumbent and a largely self-financed, brand-name newcomer from one of the nation’s most celebrated sports dynasties.
And yet, even with a sizable cash advantage (Kraft last week pledged another $3.5 million to fuel the campaign’s next phase), Tuesday offered a blunt reminder that his candidacy remains a quixotic endeavor, particularly given the tenor of the national political scene at the moment.
Just four days before all polls opened citywide, US Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that Boston would be sued by federal authorities to force local cooperation with non-criminal immigration enforcement.
Wu has, so far, been defiant in her position that Boston “will not yield” to the Trump regime’s demands, even as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are reportedly stepping up raids in the region and the president has dangled the prospect of deploying National Guard soldiers into the city.
Like Wu, Kraft has said he opposes Trump’s policies and has referred to the president as “unhinged” in political ads. But it’s the incumbent Wu and her team who have the high-profile obligation of rebutting the federal onslaught.
In introducing the victorious mayor last night in Adams Park, City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune referenced that dynamic straight away, calling Wu “our defender, our uplifter [who] is defending our city at every turn when we have a federal administration that is trying to disappear our neighbors, that is trying to bring harm to our LGTBQ plus residents.” She added: “Yes, we stand locked in arm with our mayor because we share her vision for a Boston that is home for every single one of us.”
After thanking her own family and supporters, Wu said that her massive margin of victory was proof that “wins can’t be bought”— a clear rebuke to her chief opponent, who outspent her campaign and may still in a second round. But she also warned supporters that “the fight is not over.”
“Our opponents are going to come harder, spend more, throw everything they’ve got at us,” she said. “But they don’t understand that Boston is not theirs to bully. They don’t understand that Boston will never be pushed around, and they don’t understand that we’re just getting started.”
A team of reporters, including Chris Lovett, Yawu Miller, Seth Daniel, Cassidy McNeeley, Nathan Metcalf, and Madyline Swearing contributed to this story.
