Who Won The New York City Mayoral Debate? Boston Mayor Michelle Wu!

Hey, she's pretty awesome!

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, from her reelection announcement on Instagram

In a brief lightning-round question at Wednesday’s New York City mayoral debate, the nine candidates were asked to name “the most effective Democrat in the country” right now. Their answers were pretty darn interesting; three, including former Gov. AndrEW Cuomo, went with the predictable choice, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and former state Assemblymember Michael Blake went with the refreshing, no-false-modesty answer “myself, as I actually defeated Donald Trump when I was vice chair of the DNC,” which was fun. There were nods to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, and for serious insidering, State Sen. Zellnor Myrie went with state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins, which was nice and collegial.

But two of the candidates, NYC Comptroller Brad Lander and Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, named Boston’s progressive Mayor Michelle Wu, who 1) is an actual mayor who’s doing cool mayor things in her city, and 2) was elected four years ago like departing NYC Mayor Eric Adams, but didn’t turn around and become a big disappointment once in office. Here’s video:

Kids, there were a lot of folks in the Bluesky replies who agreed that Wu was the right answer to the question, so we figured we’d better look into what we’ve been missing that two candidates think makes her of national significance.

When in doubt, always check the Wonkette archives, where we reminded ourselves that Wu ran on several priorities like climate change, affordable housing, and making Boston’s public transportation free to ride. (We also recalled that she got a big, enthusiastic endorsement from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Wu’s former law professor at Harvard.)

So how has Wu done on those issues so far? We’ll start with public transit: Not yet free system-wide, but one of Wu’s first initiatives after taking office was a pilot program to make three of the city’s busiest bus routes free to ride, using about $8 million in pandemic relief funding from Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan. The pilot program was successful enough that Wu announced last year it would be extended through March of 2026, also using Rescue Plan funding. (In a quirk of jurisdiction, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) is actually a state agency, not controlled by the city, so the free buses are covered by the city reimbursing MBTA.)

In the first two years of the pilot, riders took about 12 million trips on the fare-free routes, saving riders about $6 million in total fares. The savings per commuter using the routes worked out to about $35 a month, which no doubt helped stretch some home budgets a little further. Boston.com did feel obliged to point out that holders of $90-per-month passes didn’t save anything on those routes, since that’s a free ride when you’ve already paid, and isn’t even ironic. The pilot was also praised by Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Sen. Ed Markey, who want to see free-fare programs bloom at the national level like the Green Monsters they are (a shameless Boston base-the-ball joke).

Hey, speaking of climate, Wu has also pursued a package of climate proposals she calls the “Boston Green New Deal,” focused on decarbonizing city infrastructure and operations wherever possible. At her very first bill signing, in 2021, she signed a city ordinance to divest Boston public funds from fossil fuels, as well as tobacco, and private prisons, by the end of 2025. She instituted an “urban forestry” unit in the city to help expand and restore trees in the city, created a climate council to coordinate city climate policy, and set up a “Green New Deal Dashboard” on the city’s website where people can check the progress of Boston’s climate initiatives. Most recently, in January, the City Council passed another of her top priorities, a zoning law requiring all new buildings to have net zero emissions when they open — the first such zoning law in any major American city.

And on housing, Wu and the City Council pursued a “home rule” petition in the state Legislature in 2023, seeking to enact a rent stabilization plan, although ultimately the Lege didn’t act on it. Disappointing, but even without that cooperation from the state, Wu has pushed for other options, like Gov. Maura Healey’s plan to fund conversion of empty Boston office buildings to housing, and a May announcement of $64 million in new affordable housing.

Housing is shaping up as one of the top issues in Wu’s reelection campaign, too. Her opponent this fall, Josh Kraft, son of New England Patriots sportsball team owner Robert Kraft, incorporated parts of her 2023 rent control plan into a proposal he’s calling rent control, but which would be voluntary for landlords. The advantage, he says, is that it wouldn’t require approval from the Lege, because it’s voluntary. The downside, Wu says, is that it’s fake rent control, also because if it’s voluntary, it isn’t really rent control, now is it?

Wu has also very publicly pushed back against Trump’s constant attacks on Harvard, higher education, and medical research, telling WBUR in a recent interview that while the usual work of city government isn’t all that political, just keeping the streets open in snow and all that, “what we're experiencing today is truly unprecedented.”

“People are terrified for their lives and for their neighbors,” Wu said. “Folks [are] getting snatched off the street by secret police who are wearing masks, who can offer no justification for why certain people are being taken and then detained.”

Wu pissed off all the right people with that “secret police” remark, with the Murdoch New York Post labeling her “Boston’s woke Mayor Michelle Wu,” and Trump’s interim (acting) US Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foley condemning the remark as “reckless and inflammatory,” because boo hoo, the poor secret police were libelslandered just for hiding their faces and disappearing people. On social media, Foley griped, “There are no secrets. ICE agents, along with other federal law enforcement partners, are making immigration arrests. That is no secret. They are arresting individuals who are here illegally, which is a violation of federal law.”

See? You don’t need to know who’s disappearing residents or where they’re being disappeared to, because the fact that everyone is a target is no secret!

So far, Wu has a heavy polling advantage over Kraft and other candidates. The September 9 primary and November 4 general elections are a long way off, but as long as she has Donald Trump’s attacks on her state to run against, Mayor Wu shouldn’t lack for support. We bet she’d appreciate it if you could send her a few Ameros at her campaign website!

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Boston Woman Will Pahk Cah In Mayor's Garahge

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[Politico / Boston.com / WBUR / Boston.com / Re-Elect Michelle Wu / NYP]

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