Political Notebook: The Poetry of Boston's Golden Gate Earthquake

When the fog lifted over San Francisco and the ballots began to be counted in the municipal election, the result caught the attention of some people 3,000 miles away in Boston.

Danielle Lurie, heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, unseated incumbent London Breed, the first Black woman to hold the position, as voters cited dissatisfaction with the situation in the city and ignored critics who said he was buying the job.

Lurie, a philanthropist with experience in the nonprofit sector, spent $9 million of his own money and focused on public safety. His mother committed another $1 million to the campaign that ousted the city's current mayor for the first time in nearly 30 years.

Change the names, replace the jeans with cardboard and a football, and in some quarters, there are questions about whether what happened on the streets of San Francisco could happen next year in Boston. Josh Kraft, who heads the charitable arm of his family's paper products company and the New England Patriots empire, has spent more than a year considering whether to challenge Mayor Michelle Wu, who is preparing to run for a second term in an early election. A city that hasn't ousted an incumbent in 75 years.

Kraft opened his checkbook while fundraising for other local elected officials, sat down to write a 4,000-word profile in Boston Magazine, listened to political experts, and hired a consulting firm called Keyser Public Strategies. (Eileen O'Connor, one of the firm's partners, chairs the board of MassINC, the parent organization that publishes the Commonwealth Beacon.)

But while the chattering class inside and outside Boston City Hall loves to speculate and stir up trouble, some big caveats apply when answering whether one city's tale is a preview of another city's election cycle, which could include additional mayoral contenders, such as Councilman City of South Boston Ed. cork.

If there is a spirited mayoral race next year, Boston will be in uncharted political waters, as Wu's recent predecessors, Tom Menino and Marty Walsh, faced either fairly weak challengers or, in Menino's case, none at all in one.

Moreover, super PACs — outside groups that can raise and spend money with few restrictions — did not exist for about 30 years when the Menino era began, and were not a factor in 2017, when Walsh sought re-election. Expect that to change in 2025, especially if the Kraft family decides to empty a cardboard box of cash into a super PAC, or if unions and environmentalists join their unions.

Then there's the Donald Trump factor: His return to the White House in January makes it “much more difficult for a wealthy white man to compete against the city's first elected female mayor of color,” as the Boston Globe's Adrian Walker noted this week. Josh Kraft's father, Robert, was a friend of Trump's until a few years ago, and the family has donated to both Republicans and Democrats over the years. For his part, Lurie has a long history of working in Democratic Party politics.

But back to the two cities. Overall, Boston remains one of the safest areas in the country, with a much lower crime rate than San Francisco, which is also the most expensive place to live — one of the few places in the United States that holds this distinction over Boston.

San Francisco also allows ranked-choice voting, meaning voters were able to rank up to 10 candidates. (Lowry's strategy included pressuring voters to choose him second if he was not their first choice.) While some activists want Boston to switch to this method, it is unlikely to happen by November 2025.

When it comes to voter mood, voters in Boston have not yet expressed widespread dissatisfaction. In San Francisco, a progressive district attorney and several school board members were recalled in 2022, and some unions were nervous about Breed. Boston saw two incumbent progressive council members lose their respective primaries in 2023, the first to do so in 40 years, but they were replaced by progressive candidates who received notable support from union-backed super PACs and Wu herself.

Hailey two nails

Since the presidential election, Governor Maura Healey has taken two paths, and two different tones, in responding to the results.

At her post-election news conference the next day, hours after Donald Trump's victory became apparent, Haley said: “Whether you voted for the president-elect or not, we see you.” Hours later, she appeared on MSNBC saying governors and prosecutors would “stand the ground again” on the rule of law and democracy.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday after testifying at a healthcare-related event at Suffolk University, Haley took aim at Trump's nominee to run the US Justice Department, Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida who has faced ethics investigations on Capitol Hill, including sex probes. Misconduct allegations. “As someone who was a former law enforcement official and a prosecutor, I find that [the pick] Completely unserious and appalling. “Donald Trump should withdraw this immediately,” she said of Gaetz’s nomination.

The more conciliatory tone was evident in an earlier answer to a question about health care, when she said, almost in an aside: “I don't like that term ‘red states.'” This political term has been around for more than 20 years.

When asked to provide more details, Healey seemed to take a page from Barack Obama's notes, when the future president came to the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston to deliver a career-defining speech and urge Americans to cross the partisan divide. “The whole divide between red states and blue states — we're one country, you know? We're the United States of America,” she said.

Healey added: “I'm focused on meeting the needs of the people here. Cutting costs and increasing housing are the biggest things I'm focused on. And as we move forward of course, we're going to work to protect the rights and freedoms of people here….We just need to find a way to work together in this country.”

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