Boston chooses two women of color for runoff election in historic mayoral race
For the first time in 200 years, Boston’s voters have narrowed the field of mayoral candidates to two women of color, who will face off against each other in November.
City Councilmembers Michelle Wu and Annissa Essaibi George topped the five-person race in Tuesday’s preliminary election. They bested acting Mayor Kim Janey, Councilmember Andrea Campbell and John Barros, the city’s former economic development chief. All five were candidates of color — a major shift away from two centuries of Boston politics dominated by white men.
Whoever wins the Nov. 2 runoff will make history in a city that has never elected a woman or Asian American as mayor. For the past 200 years, voters have chosen only a white man.
Wu’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan. Essaibi George describes herself as a first-generation Arab Polish American.
Wu and Essaibi George’s advancement in the election ushers in a new era for a city that has wrestled with racial and ethnic strife.
“I’m overjoyed that we are confident we’ve made the top two and are moving on to the final election,” Wu told her supporters earlier in the evening. “I just want to take a moment to honor and thank this historic field of candidates, an amazing moment for the city of Boston.”
Women of color in growing numbers are running for political office; obstacles remain, but in the race for mayor of Boston, these candidates dominate the field.
Essaibi George said she was confident she could pose a significant challenge to Wu in November.
“I am so grateful to you showing up not just tonight but showing up for the last eight months,” she told supporters.
Wu spoke to reporters outside Boston City Hall on Wednesday.
“This is the moment in Boston that our campaign and our coalition has been calling for for a long time,” she said. “We got in this race over a year ago — actually exactly a year ago today — to ensure that Boston would step up to meet this moment.”
Essaibi George in her victory speech said the mayor of Boston can’t unilaterally restore rent control — a jab at Wu, who wants to revive a version of rent control, or rent stabilization, which was banned statewide by a 1994 ballot question.
Wu pushed back, saying she’s addressed tough challenges during her years on the City Council.
“We took on issues that people said were pie in the sky, would be impossible to accomplish, but by building coalitions, working across all levels of government and continuing to bring community members to the table, we knocked those down, one by one,” she said.
Earlier this year, Janey became the first Black Bostonian and first woman to occupy the city’s top office in an acting capacity after former Mayor Marty Walsh stepped down to become President Biden’s Labor secretary.
“I want to congratulate Michelle Wu and Annissa Essaibi George on their victories this evening,” Janey said in a statement. “This was a spirited and historic race, and I wish them both luck in the final election.”
There had been an effort among some leaders in the Black community to rally around a single candidate to ensure that at least one Black hopeful could claim one of the top two slots.
All of the candidates are Democrats. Mayoral races in Boston do not include party primaries.
Wu was elected to the Boston City Council in 2013 at age 28, becoming the first Asian American woman to serve. In 2016, she was elected City Council president by her colleagues in a unanimous vote, becoming the first woman of color to serve as president.
Essaibi George won a series of key endorsements during the race, including from unions representing firefighters, nurses and emergency medical technicians. She also won the backing of former Boston Police Commissioner William Gross.
There will be more women of color sworn in to the 117th U.S. Congress than ever before, with at least 51 women of color elected.
Essaibi George grew up in the city’s Dorchester neighborhood and taught in the Boston public school system. She was elected to the City Council in 2015. Her father immigrated to the U.S. from Tunisia in 1972. Her mother was born to Polish parents in a refugee camp in Germany.
The November contest could be a test of whether voters in a city long dominated by parochial neighborhood and ethnic politics are ready to embrace someone like Wu, who grew up in Chicago.
Wu moved to Boston to attend Harvard University and Harvard Law School and studied under Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), then a law professor. She’s the only candidate not born in Boston.
Boston has changed radically since the 1970s and 1980s, when it was overwhelmingly white and riven by racial tensions. Today it’s a majority-minority city: The latest census statistics show that residents who identify as white make up 44.6% of Boston’s population, Black residents 19.1%, Latino residents 18.7% and residents of Asian descent 11.2%.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh is the central figure of Frederick Wiseman’s sweeping yet incisive 45th nonfiction feature, “City Hall.”
Among the challenges facing the city are those brought on by gentrification, which has forced out many long-term residents, including those in historically Black neighborhoods.
Added to that are a host of other challenges that will face the new mayor, including schools, transportation woes, racial injustice and policing, and the ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
