Wu takes massive lead over Kraft in new Boston mayoral poll
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is on track to lead challenger Josh Kraft by a wide margin in Tuesday's preliminary election, which appears almost certain to end with both candidates moving on to a one-on-one general election in November, according to a new poll of the race released Friday.
The Emerson College poll shows Wu with a 72% to 22% lead over Kraft among likely voters, a far more expansive lead than the 30-percentage-point margin with which she led when the Boston Globe and Suffolk University polled the race in July.
The poll sets Kraft up for a monumental challenge if he is to defeat the first-term mayor in the general election.
Its release caps a difficult week for the Kraft campaign, which this week parted ways with two of the candidate's top advisors .
Kraft, a Democratic political newcomer who previously ran the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston, has been considered Wu's closest challenger since he launched his mayoral bid in February.
But Wu, also a Democrat, has increased her support by 29 percentage points since Emerson last polled the race that month , when it showed the mayor leading Kraft 43% to 29%. Kraft's support has fallen seven points in that same period.
"Over the past seven months, Mayor Wu appears to have made her case for re-election to Boston voters, while Kraft has not been able to expand his support," Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement.
Two other candidates, Domingos DaRosa and Robert Cappucci, drew 2% and 1%, respectively, in the Emerson poll released on Friday. Just 2% of voters are undecided with just four days to go until the preliminary election.
The campaign between Wu and Kraft has grown increasingly contentious over the spring and summer as the candidates sparred over housing construction, bike and bus lanes, the renovation of White Stadium in Franklin Park and Wu's management of the city government.
The Emerson poll, conducted from Sept. 2 to Sept. 3, included the opinions of 555 likely voters. It had a margin of error of 4.1%.
In February, white voters narrowly supported Kraft, 39% to 37%. Today, they widely back Wu, 74% to 22%. The mayor's support among other demographics has also spiked, increasing from 54% to 61% among Hispanic voters since February, from 40% to 79% among Black voters, and from 58% to 81% among Asian voters, Emerson found.
Nearly three in four Boston voters view Wu's leadership favorably, while 24% have an unfavorable view.
Meanwhile, a 58% majority holds an unfavorable view of Kraft. His favorability sits at 26%.
The poll also shows voters have supported the mayor's stance against the federal government over immigration enforcement.
Under city law , Boston Police do not cooperate with federal officers on noncriminal immigration matters, though they assist on serious criminal investigations into issues like drug and weapons trafficking.
On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the city over the law, often known as a "sanctuary" policy.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said city leaders "explicitly enforce policies designed to undermine law enforcement and protect illegal aliens from justice."
Two in three voters support Wu's decision to maintain the city's sanctuary city policy.
By a margin of 77% to 20%, Boston voters also disapprove of President Donald Trump's threats to deploy National Guard troops to Boston to combat crime, as he has done in Washington, D.C..
A national poll by Emerson in August found that 48% of voters disapprove of Trump deploying the Guard in Boston, while 41% approve.
A 45% plurality of Boston voters view their community as safer than it was when Wu took office four years ago, while 21% think they are less safe and 35% see no change.
The poll also shed light on public opinion of the numerous issues over which Wu and Kraft have sparred during the campaign.
As the 2025-2026 school year kicks off, 54% of voters think the Boston Public Schools are headed in the right direction, while 46% say they are not. The numbers are an exact flip from Emerson's February poll, when 54% of voters said the school district was sliding backward.
Boston voters are evenly split on Wu's installation of more bike lanes across the city, one of the chief issues on which Kraft has hit the mayor.
Thirty-five percent of voters think Boston has too many bike lanes, an equal share says the city has enough bike lanes, and 30% say there are not enough.
Voters support the rebuilding of White Stadium, which will house an incoming women's soccer team, by 48% to 29% margin, with 23% undecided.
Kraft worked at the Boys and Girls Clubs for three decades, including 12 years leading the organization in Boston.
He has also served on the boards or in leadership of other local organizations and nonprofits, including the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, Brandeis University and Brigham and Women's Hospital.
He is the son of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and has previously led the family's charitable organization, the New England Patriots Foundation.
While his support has fallen in polls, his family's wealth means Josh Kraft is campaigning with far greater financial resources than Wu.
He has raised more than $3.3 million since the beginning of the year and contributed millions of his own dollars to the campaign. In the same period, Wu has raised about $1.9 million, campaign finance records show.
The Kraft campaign spent nearly $2.4 million in August to Wu's $303,000. He finished the month with about $1.3 million on hand, while Wu closed with more than $2.4 million.
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