Michelle Wu has held off on a formal reelection launch, but the scene on Monday night inside the Omni Parker House had the unmistakable vibes of a Boston mayor gearing up to defend her seat in 2025.
More than 60 people, most of them women, poured into a room on the 14th floor, with some spilling out onto the terrace named for the poet and slave Phillis Wheatley and offering views of the Citgo sign and the Charles.
The event ended up raising roughly $30,000 for Wu’s campaign account, which as of the end of May held nearly $1.5 million. Attendees of the “Women for Wu” fundraiser for the first woman mayor of Boston included veterans of the Tom Menino and Kevin White mayoral administrations, communications pros, businesspeople, environmental advocates, lawmakers, and one of the state’s top union leaders, Greater Boston Labor Council president Darlene Lombos.
Others are making noise about a run, like North End restaurateur Jorge Mendoza Iturralde, or continue to weigh a campaign, such as New England Patriots Foundation president Josh Kraft.
On Monday evening, Wu came close to an announcement, and threw in a preview of her likely pitch to voters when her name is back on the ballot next year.
Colette Phillips, a marketing and public relations executive, did the introduction. (Phillips is also a member of the advisory board to CommonWealth Beacon.)
Phillips, who lives just over the border in Brookline and is friends with Kraft, said she knows the people who may want to run for mayor. Kraft, who has lived in and around Chestnut Hill, recently bought a multimillion dollar condo in Boston’s North End, a short walk from City Hall, and last December he registered to vote in the city.
“The only mayor and the only candidate I will be standing with is you,” Phillips told Wu, prompting the mayor to respond, “I just got my first endorsement” for reelection.
In her remarks to the crowd, Phillips noted that Wu signed an ordinance divesting city funds from fossil fuels and private prisons; paid the MBTA to make three bus lines running through Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan fare-free for riders; and appointed a task force focused on figuring out how to pay reparations for slavery. Though she added, jokingly, “I get upset with the bicycle riders,” a reference to Wu’s push for more bike lanes.
“I will talk about everything except bike lanes tonight,” Wu quipped.
“We are the safest major city in America, hands down,” Wu added, turning to a more serious topic and singling out the low homicide rate.
Earlier in the day, Wu administration officials had briefed reporters on other numbers in a City Hall-issued economic report.
While accentuating the positives, the report also mirrored warnings from the city’s business sector, while saying Boston is doing better than other urban areas. “Persistent remote/hybrid work trends have decreased commuter activity and softened demand for office space and the retail and transportation services that cater to commuters,” the report said. “Foot traffic trends in Boston’s commercial hubs remain below pre-pandemic levels.”
Additionally, high inflation and interest rates hampered new housing production in the city as Massachusetts grapples with a crisis that is causing people to leave the state for cheaper places to live. Some developers have also complained about new environmental and affordable housing rules that the Wu administration has pushed forward, saying they make construction even more difficult.
But the report also showed a tight labor market, and the city gaining 10,000 jobs in 2023, and concluded that Boston likely underwent an economic expansion that year. “Boston’s ability to reinvent itself in the world of virtual work and commerce, the city’s assets in educational, health care, and cultural institutions, and our diverse, youthful, and skilled population are reasons for optimism,” the report said.
And as Omni Parker House hotel workers standing off to the side of Wu fundraiser could attest, the city’s tourism and hospitality sectors returned to, or at least approached, pre-pandemic levels.
“We’ve really tried to show that this is a city where there is no limit to the progress that we can make,” Wu told the crowd. “And sometimes, women can be a little underestimated in terms of the expectations that are set, but if you look by the numbers, by the metrics, I will put my administration up against any progress in any city right now.”
Whether reelection will be a breezy ride on one of Wu’s prized bike lanes or an uphill climb remains to be seen, as corners of the city rumble in search of an able competitor. Either way, the mayor has clearly shifted gears into campaign mode, even if she hasn’t formally said so.
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