Boston Mayor's Race Narrows to a Progressive Versus a Moderate
OSTON — Michelle Wu, an Asian American progressive who has built a campaign around climate change and housing policy, sailed to a first-place finish in Boston’s preliminary mayoral election on Tuesday, winning 33 percent of the vote in a city that for nearly 200 years has elected only white men.
As a front-runner, Ms. Wu, 36, marks a striking departure for this city, whose politics have long turned on neighborhoods and ethnic rivalries.
The daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, she is not originally from Boston and has built an ardent following as a city councilor by proposing sweeping structural changes, like making the city’s public transportation free, restoring a form of rent control, and introducing the country’s first city-level Green New Deal.
Because of difficulties counting mail-in and drop-box ballots, the vote count moved slowly through the night, with many results being tallied by hand, and full unofficial results were not released until 10 a.m. Wednesday.
Ms. Wu, who like all of the top candidates in the contest is a Democrat, will face off in November against the second-place finisher, Annissa Essaibi George, who won 22.5 percent of the vote. Raised in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood by immigrant parents of Tunisian and Polish ancestry, Ms. Essaibi George has positioned herself as a moderate, winning endorsements from traditional power centers like the firefighters’ union and a former police commissioner.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/us/boston-mayor-election-michelle-wu.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytnational