From sanctuary city Boston comes bad and good news. The bad news is that back in September, Josh Kraft, the son of multibillionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, withdrew from his bid to unseat the incumbent Mayor Michelle Wu. When Kraft entered the race, he seemed well-positioned to challenge Wu. He had millions to spend on his campaign and, since Bostonians love the Patriots, perhaps some of that enthusiasm might transfer to Kraft. But as things turned out, Bostonians love Wu more than the Patriots.
Despite outspending Wu $6.2 million to $1.2 million, Wu crushed Kraft in the primary election by a greater than 3-to-1 margin. Even the $3.5 million of his personal funds that he poured into the campaign’s closing weeks before the preliminary election didn’t help him. Wu will run unopposed, assuring that Boston’s mayor will be yet another Democrat. A century has passed since the last Republican mayor, Malcolm Nichols, served from 1926 to 1930. Wu, constantly criticizing the Trump administration and specifically Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is following in the footsteps of her predecessor, Marty Walsh, who invited illegal immigrants into his City Hall office to make their personal telephone calls.
Wu ran on a platform that includes free city transportation, climate action through Boston’s Green New Deal, and two standbys: affordable housing and education reform. In a new development, Wu held an embargoed press conference—the voting public was kept in the dark—wherein she admitted that a previously announced 2026 property tax increase of 13% would actually be 26% because of retroactive application. If Boston had not spent billions on housing, food, and education for illegal immigrants, homeowners would not have to provide the revenue to help close the widening budget gap.
Boston’s fiscal future under Wu looks grim. The Boston Policy Institute report, researched by the Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University, found that office values in the city are likely to fall 35% to 45% from 2024 levels, widening the city’s budget shortfall from $135 million this year to more than $550 million in fiscal 2029, totaling $1.7 billion over five years. Despite the red ink that engulfs Wu, she paid $950 per hour—a total of $650,000—to prepare for congressional testimony defending Boston’s sanctuary city practices.
Finally, the good news comes. Although Wu has harshly criticized the Trump administration over its immigration enforcement removals and has called ICE agents “secret police,” ICE actions in Boston have not only proceeded undeterred but have expanded into adjacent cities. Dubbed “Operation Patriot 2.0,” a continuation of May’s “Operation Patriot,” agents arrested almost 1,500 illegal immigrants across Massachusetts. The Department of Homeland Security released the following statement: “Sanctuary policies like those pushed by [Boston] Mayor [Michelle] Wu not only attract and harbor criminals but also place these public safety threats above the interests of law-abiding American citizens. ICE is arresting sex offenders, pedophiles, murderers, drug dealers and gang members released by local authorities.”
Wu often claims that Boston is the safest city in the nation and, by inference, that ICE is terrorizing its already well-protected residents. But when the Federal Bureau of Investigation examined Wu’s claim, it found that Boston ranked ninth out of the nation’s 50 largest cities for homicide rates and 16th out of the nation’s 50 largest cities for overall violent crime rates.
With Wu as their mayor for the next four years, Bostonians will hope for the best—an unlikely outcome. Voters get the government they elected; they selected Wu and have no one to blame for the outcome except themselves.
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