Mayor Wu beating Josh Kraft by more than 30 points

In Boston, the primaries for the 2025 mayoral election has been a race between two big candidates: incumbent candidate Mayor Michelle Wu and Josh Kraft. Both will appear on the ballot for the primary election on Sept. 9, and on the general election ballot on Nov. 4. The top two candidates in each political party advance to the general election ballot, and both Kraft and Wu are democratic candidates.

A poll conducted by Suffolk University between July 13 and July 16, shows Wu beating Kraft by 30 points. The data projects Wu winning with 59% of voters and Kraft having 29%, out of a sample size of 500 registered voters in Massachusetts. 

This was similar to a previous poll taken between April 23 and April 25 showing Wu beating Kraft by more than 30 points. The poll was conducted by Saint Anselm’s college. The polling data asked 564 likely voters in Boston on who they were going to vote for.

The data shows that Wu secured 53% of the votes compared to Kraft’s 21%. So if the election were held when the poll was taken, Wu would have won in the election between the two. 

Saint Anslem’s poll also shows that Mayor Wu is viewed positively as the current Mayor with 61% approving with 37% disapproval rate. This can be compared to Kraft’s approval ratings, which was 28% approval with 32% disapproval. 

An earlier poll by Emerson college, which was conducted between Feb. 24 and 26, showed Kraft down by 13 points: with Wu at 42% of votes compared to Kraft at 29%. This poll asked 617 Boston registered voters who they were going to vote for in the election and the results showed Wu would beat Kraft by 13%. 

These polls show that as the election is getting closer, Wu’s gap is increasing and it seems less likely for Josh Kraft to win the mayoral election. Comparing the Emerson poll conducted in February to the Suffolk poll in July, it shows that Wu’s percentage of likely voters went up by 17%, while Kraft has remained at the same amount. 

However, this recent poll is the first example of Wu’s polling lead decreasing from 32% by Saint Anslem’s poll to roughly 30%.

So while this poll gap may have slightly decreased in this recent poll however, Wu is still likely to be reelected in Boston as the gap in this poll isn’t a very large margin.