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U.S.|Patriots Owner’s Son Challenges Michelle Wu for Mayor of Boston
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/04/us/boston-mayor-josh-kraft-michelle-wu.html
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Josh Kraft, a political newcomer who is running as a Democrat, said his top priority was addressing the city’s housing crisis.
Feb. 4, 2025Updated 2:20 p.m. ET
Josh Kraft, a son of the owner of the New England Patriots, Robert K. Kraft, and the head of the team’s philanthropic foundation, announced on Tuesday that he is running against Mayor Michelle Wu of Boston, a progressive Democrat, who is up for re-election this year.
At an event kicking off his campaign, Mr. Kraft, 57, a political newcomer running as a Democrat, pledged to address the city’s housing affordability crisis and improve its public schools. The biggest cheers from supporters came when he promised to end the proliferation of bike lanes in Boston — one of Ms. Wu’s signature initiatives, and a cause of some annoyance in congested neighborhoods of the city, which Mr. Kraft cited as evidence of her failure to listen to residents.
“On issue after issue, the mayor has become less and less receptive, and more and more disconnected from the communities, their feedback, and their needs,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Ms. Wu did not offer an immediate response to Mr. Kraft’s criticism.
Mr. Kraft is expected to face an uphill battle to unseat Ms. Wu, 40, who in 2021 became the first woman and person of color to be elected mayor.
Groundbreaking mayors of other big left-leaning cities have recently been cast aside by voters. The first Black woman elected to the job in San Francisco, London Breed, lost her re-election bid last year to Daniel Lurie, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune with no political experience. Lori Lightfoot, the first Black woman to lead Chicago, lost in 2023, the first incumbent mayor to be defeated there in decades.
Mr. Kraft is gambling that Boston voters, too, are ready for a change. But he will have to persuade them that his experience running nonprofits and charities has prepared him to run a city of 650,000.
