“I have a lot of work in front of me,” said Boston Mayor Michelle Wu when we asked about her plans to run for a second term next year. “A lot of it is important long-term work and I hope to keep making progress on that.”
Sounds like an incumbent who plans on sticking around. But then Wu added: “I still need to have some conversations before shifting on to a campaign or politics.”
Huh.
It’s not that there’s any violent rush for the mayor to make her announcement. Marty Walsh didn’t make his second run official until July of the election year. Tom Menino never really needed to announce; if the sun was set to rise over the Harbor Islands, he was running again, you’d better believe it.
And if these “conversations” are about weighing the personal toll of this 24/7/365 job on a multigenerational caregiver, that’s understandable. Being mayor is an “all effort, all heart, all family and community event,” Wu says. “For now, I’m focused on what’s in front of us and City Hall.”
That’s what all incumbent politicians say at this point in the re-election cycle, and it’s no more plausible coming from Wu than from anyone else. This mayor, like all who preceded her, isn’t delaying a “shift” to campaign politics — she’s already neck deep in it.
It’s been months since, according to City Hall sources in the know, Wu reached out to predecessor Marty Walsh to ask for his endorsement (i.e. feel out how much of an obstacle he and his allies are going to be), which he declined to give. And the mayor is well aware of all the talk of philanthropist Josh Kraft, son of the Patriots’ owner, mulling a challenge.
Why worry? On the surface, no reason.
It’s been 75 years since the last incumbent Boston mayor — an aging, corrupt James Michael Curley, who spent five months of his final term in prison for mail fraud — lost a re-election bid. Wu racked up 91,794 votes while swamping Annissa Essaibi George in the 2021 election, more than double her ticket-topping haul in her final campaign for at-large councilor.
As the late Councilor Dapper O’Neil would say of his own support – they don’t count Michelle Wu’s votes, they weigh them.
But if you’re going to knock off an incumbent, your best shot is their first re-election run. After that, forget it.
And Wu’s first term has not exactly been a milk run.
Mayors have to make tough decisions, and those tend to piss off people. The cops may have settled their contract, but they’re not thrilled about having to warn potential perps in advance before they reach for the pepper spray. The real estate moguls who fueled the city’s long-running boom are expressing their distaste with Wu’s development policies by backing off new projects and taking their dollars elsewhere; her proposed tax-hike on their massively devalued existing properties is only exacerbating the rift.
And if the mayor plans on dining out in the North End this summer, better bring a food taster.
“I love what I’m doing, I love the city and hope to keep doing it,” the mayor told us.
Looks like we’ll soon find out how much the city loves her back.