Josh Kraft, son of the billionaire New England Patriots owner and head of the family’s philanthropic arm, has filed paperwork to run for mayor of Boston.
Kraft, president of the New England Patriots Foundation, has formed a campaign account with the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance. The filing is his first official move toward joining the race and challenging Mayor Michelle Wu.
“Today’s filing was a necessary first step towards an official announcement, which will come soon, where Josh will lay out his vision and ideas for turning Boston around,” Eileen O’Connor, a spokesperson for Kraft, said on Monday.
The newly organized OCPF account lists Allison Murray as Kraft’s campaign treasurer, the North End condo he purchased in October 2023 as his address, and his party affiliation as a Democrat, but doesn’t reveal much else.
It shows that he filed paperwork to form his campaign account last Friday, and that it was organized on Monday, a week after sources confirmed to the Herald that Kraft, 57, was planning to jump into the race, following months of speculation.
Kraft, per sources, plans to make an official announcement in February.
Political observers have pointed to a number of factors that could make Kraft a formidable opponent to Wu, but he will face an uphill climb in Boston, where no incumbent mayor has lost since 1949.
Wu, a popular progressive, has $1.7 million in her campaign war chest, according to the Office of Campaign and Political Finance, already has endorsements from several labor unions including the two largest city worker unions, and has regularly touted Boston as the “safest major city in the country,” given its record-low homicide rate.
Kraft, the son of the billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, may have near-unlimited funds to spend in the race.
He also has more name recognition than many other first-time candidates and ties to the community through his roughly 30-year stint with the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston, 12 years of which was spent as president. He is board chair of the Urban League of Massachusetts, which is based in Roxbury.
Political observers expect Kraft to capitalize on the perceived vulnerabilities of Mayor Wu on the campaign trail.
Wu has struggled to push her bid to raise commercial tax rates to provide relief for homeowners through the Legislature, where it has stalled twice already. She has also encountered heavy resistance to her public-private plan to redevelop Franklin Park’s White Stadium for a professional women’s soccer team — a project that is costing taxpayers $100 million and counting.
Other perceived vulnerabilities center around the school closures and the city’s housing affordability crisis. The mayor, however, has made affordable housing a priority during her first term, and recently got approval from the City Council for a $110 million housing accelerator fund to jumpstart stalled construction projects.
Some political observers see Kraft’s past connections and contributions to Republican candidates, along with his father’s longtime connection to President Donald Trump, as potential vulnerabilities in a “Democratic stronghold” like Boston. The two factors were included in a poll testing how he would fare against Wu that circulated this past summer.
He also just recently moved to Boston, having purchased a North End condo in October 2023 for $2.5 million, after having lived in Chestnut Hill.
O’Connor said Kraft lives in Boston “and his North End home is his primary residence.”