Boston’s general election happened just a week ago, but already many of us have moved on to the prospects of statewide and national contests next year.
But, lest we turn the page from the 2025 cycle too quickly, last week’s DotLife podcast episode— featuring special guest Chris Lovett— took a few minutes to pore over the precinct-by-precinct returns and reflect on what this election means in the context of past city contests.
Henry Santana— a close Michelle Wu ally who finished fourth to win re-election to his citywide seat— was propelled by a surge in support compared to his vote total in the September preliminary.
He was pursued most closely by Frank Baker, the former District 3 councillor, who made his first-ever citywide run for office this year. In September, Baker trailed Santana for the fourth slot by roughly 4,000 votes— a margin that many thought was well within striking distance for a very well-financed candidate like Baker.
But when the votes were all sorted, Santana had not only defended his flank, he had almost tripled his margin— finishing more than 15,000 votes ahead of Baker. By Lovett’s count, Baker grew his vote by 8 percent while Santana’s total went up by 40 percent.
Above, a victorious Henry Santana, left, at a victory party at Grace by Nia. Speaking is Councillor Ruthzee Louijeune, the top vote-getter in the citywide council balloting. Mayor Wu is at right. Nathan Metcalf photo
“There’s some kind of machinery going on there, I would imagine,” Lovett posited.
No doubt about it. Having dispatched all three of her preliminary opponents in an absolute shellacking back in September, Mayor Wu had made no secret about her interest in returning Santana, perhaps her closest council ally, to the body— particularly if the alternative was Baker, a frequent Wu critic who would clearly have been part of a more conservative bloc in her second term.
Wu was also generally supportive of newcomer Alexandra Valdez, who finished behind Baker in sixth position. But it was Santana, an incumbent who was widely seen as the most vulnerable at-large incumbent, who benefited from the mayor’s ground game, including very active unions who were lined up largely behind her.
Lovett came to the discussion armed with another interesting factoid about the ’25 mayoral cycle, the first time since 1997 that a first-term Boston mayor up for re-election faced no opponent on the November ballot.
In ’97, it was Tom Menino who cruised through the final unopposed. But, as Lovett noted, Menino actually received roughly 10 percent more “blanks” in his ’97 outing than Michelle Wu did last week.
Florian Hall, a double-precinct in Dorchester, was one of the places where Wu posted a high number of blanks. But here’s another interesting fact: The total number of votes out of Florian this year was almost identical to the number back in 1997, when it accounted for about one percent of all votes citywide. But while Florian still consistently posts one of the highest turnout rates by percentage every election, it now accounts for roughly 0.6 percent of the citywide total.
That’s because, as Lovett points out, “other parts of the city are turning out more voters,” including Ward 19 in JP and Roslindale, Wu strongholds that have a lot more people coming out to vote than they did in ‘97.
“The critical mass of the electorate has shifted not only geographically but almost in that right-to-left spectrum in Boston,” Lovett noted.
Some have interpreted national wins by Democrats last week as a “blue wave.” Here in Boston, we can keep it simpler: It was a Wu wave, one that started four years ago and shows no sign of ebbing anytime soon.
