This year’s Boston election cycle is drawing far more interest from potential candidates than two years ago, which lacked a mayoral race and had a City Council incumbent speculating that the body’s dysfunction was turning people off from running.
As of Friday, 13 people had filed paperwork to run for mayor of Boston, which one political observer said is unusual for a mayoral race that features an incumbent. Another 17 people filed their intent to run for the four councilor-at-large seats, and six of the nine district council seats were competitive.
That’s a far cry from the 2023 election cycle, which didn’t include a preliminary for the City Council-at-Large race, due to there being only eight candidates. In that cycle, most incumbents went unchallenged for their district council seats, but Ricardo Arroyo and Kendra Lara notably became the first incumbents to be knocked off in a primary in roughly four decades, after their legal and ethical lapses.
“I think it’s good for democracy when there are more candidates,” Larry DiCara, an attorney, former city council president and longtime observer of Boston politics, told the Herald Friday. “It may be that people are figuring out that sitting back at this time in the nation’s political history may be unacceptable.”
DiCara was perhaps alluding to the national political climate, and the Trump administration’s tendency to target Boston and Mayor Michelle Wu due to policy disagreements on matters like immigration.
Wu, a first-term mayor, is facing her staunchest opposition thus far from Josh Kraft, a son of the billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and longtime philanthropist, in her bid for a second term. Kraft has sought to capitalize on Wu’s perceived political vulnerabilities.
While DiCara said the mayor’s race “looks like a two-person fight” between Wu and Kraft, 11 other people have filed statements of candidacy with the city’s Elections Department, which he sees as being rather unusual in Boston politics.
Typically, there would be 10 or so people considering a bid for mayor if there was a vacancy in that office, which is not the case this year, DiCara said.
“For an incumbent mayor, I cannot think of that many candidates suggesting they’d run, ever, against an incumbent — ever meaning in the last 60 years,” he said.
Both the Wu and Kraft campaign said they have already crossed the 3,000 signature threshold to get on the fall ballot, but it’s unclear how many of the 11 other candidates will be able to drum up enough support to meet that requirement.
Candidates began to pull nomination forms and collect signatures this past Wednesday and have until May 20 to submit their forms. Signatures would then have to be certified by the city’s Elections Department.
Aside from Wu and Kraft, potential mayoral candidates thus far include Kerry Augustin, Domingos DaRosa, Berry Adams, Alex Alex, Robert Cappucci, Robert Frasca, John Houton, Jaha Hughes, William Morgan, Alex Winston, and Bill Wright II.
The two Council races that have drawn the most interest are for the four at-large seats, and the District 7 seat, which opened up after Tania Fernandes Anderson opted to resign after agreeing to plead guilty to federal corruption charges.
Two years ago, City Councilor-at-Large Erin Murphy suggested that the Council’s dysfunction was turning off candidates, after just eight at-large candidates emerged in the 2023 race, thereby eliminating the need for a preliminary. This year, 17 candidates have filed paperwork to run for the four at-large seats.
DiCara said the Council, despite Fernandes Anderson’s federal corruption probe and arrest, may have been able to shed part of that perception, and running for that 13-member body may thus be more attractive these days.
“I think the City Council is doing OK,” DiCara said. “They’re finding their way through the Tania Fernandes Anderson situation about as best as could be expected, and I think they’re in far better shape than they were two years ago.”
Another factor driving interest is the mayor’s apparent push to get more of her preferred candidates on the City Council, DiCara said. He cited the several candidates who are on the city payroll as part of his rationale, but clarified that he is not privy to those conversations.
In 2023, the mayor endorsed a slate of City Council candidates, including three who worked for her administration or campaign — Sharon Durkan, Enrique Pepén and Henry Santana — who were ultimately elected and now sit on the body.
“Mayors have been involving themselves in City Council races for a long time,” DiCara said.
Running for at-large are the four incumbents, City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune, Erin Murphy, Julia Mejia and Henry Santana, along with City Hall employees Will Onouha and Alexandra Valdez, District 7 staffer Reggie Stewart, William Regan III, Rachel Miselman, Marvin Mathelier, Philip Kelso, Jacob Jones, Yves Jean, Robert Frasca, John Foy, Joao DePina and Clifton Braithwaite.
“I expect that two of the incumbents are in great shape,” DiCara said, referring to Louijeune and Murphy. “The other two will have to hustle.”
Louijeune and Murphy were neck and neck at the top of the ticket in 2023, and both have “very strong bases,” he said.
A preliminary, if more than eight candidates qualify after signature certification, would whittle down the at-large field to eight for the general election.
In District 7, 17 candidates have filed their statements of candidacy. The most vocal thus far have been Said Ahmed, founder of the Boston United youth track program; Said Abdikarim, who previously ran for councilor-at-large; and Mavrick Afonso, who officially launched his campaign this past Thursday and works for the Healey administration’s Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities.
The field also includes Wawa Bell, Tehad Cort, the Rev. Miniard Culpepper, Joao DePina, past state Senate candidate James Grant, Kamar Hewitt, Samuel Hurtado, Natalie Juba-Sutherland, Jerome King, Wu critic Shawn Nelson, Roy Owens, Sam Shroff, Robert Stanley, and Steven Wise.
Five of the remaining eight district council seats were also competitive, as of Friday. Just three of the incumbents, John FitzGerald in District 3, Benjamin Weber in District 6 and Sharon Durkan in District 8, were unopposed.
Pepén is thus far facing one challenger in District 5, while races in District 1, 2, 4 and 9 have the potential to trigger a September preliminary, with at least two candidates filing paperwork to challenge Gabriela Coletta Zapata, Ed Flynn, Brian Worrell, and Liz Breadon, respectively.
“We’ve got to see who gets on the ballot,” DiCara said, “because getting on the ballot is not as easy as people think it is.”