Boston Mayor Michelle Wu leads challenger Josh Kraft ahead of the preliminary election and as she faces a legal challenge from President Donald Trump‘s Department of Justice (DOJ), according to a new poll.
Newsweek reached out to the Wu and Kraft campaigns for comment via email.
Why It Matters
Wu, first elected in 2021, is up for re-election to lead Massachusetts’ largest city this year—but has faced a challenge from Kraft, the son of Robert Kraft, who owns the New England Patriots.
Kraft has cast himself as more politically moderate than Wu, who more left-leaning Democrats like New York mayoral candidate Zohan Mamdani point to as a model for how to be an effective, progressive mayor of a major city. Wu has garnered national attention for opposing President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
What to Know
A new Emerson College poll showed Wu leading Kraft with nearly three-quarters of the vote.
Seventy-two percent of respondents said they planned to cast their ballot for Wu in the preliminary election, while only 22 percent said they would vote for Kraft, according to the survey, which polled 555 likely voters from September 2 to September 3, 2025.
That marks a significant shift from February, when an Emerson poll pointed to a much closer race. That poll showed Wu leading with 43 percent of the vote, compared to 29 percent support for Kraft.
The poll comes as Wu faces a lawsuit from the DOJ over its sanctuary city laws, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Thursday.
In a statement, Bondi argued Boston’s laws, which restrict the city’s police department from working with federal immigration officers, “undermine law enforcement and protect illegal aliens from justice.”
Wu responded to the lawsuit in a statement, reported WBTS-TV, Boston’s NBC News affiliate.
“This is our city and we will vigorously defend our laws and the constitutional rights of cities, which have been repeatedly upheld in courts across the country. We will not yield,” she wrote in a statement with Boston Police Department Commissioner Michael Cox.
An earlier poll from The Boston Globe and Suffolk University showed Wu up 30 points (60 percent to 30 percent). It surveyed 500 likely voters from July 13 to July 16, 2025, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
What People Are Saying
Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, wrote in the polling memo: “Over the past seven months, Mayor Wu appears to have made her case for re-election to Boston voters, while Kraft has not been able to expand his support. In February, white voters were split between Kraft and Wu, 39% to 37%; now, they break for Wu 74% to 22%. Wu’s margins among minority populations have also grown, increasing seven points among Hispanic voters, from 54% to 61%, climbing to 79% among Black voters, and jumping from 58% to 81% among Asian voters.”
Wu wrote in the statement responding to the DOJ: “This unconstitutional attack on our city is not a surprise. Boston is a thriving community, the economic and cultural hub of New England, and the safest major city in the country — but this administration is intent on attacking our community to advance their own authoritarian agenda.”
What Happens Next
The preliminary election is set for September 9, 2025. Other candidates include former Boston School Committee member Robert Cappucci and activist Domingos DaRosa.
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