2025 Boston mayoral election

The 2025 Boston mayoral election was held on November 4, 2025, to elect the mayor of Boston. Because more than two candidates qualified for the ballot, a non-partisan primary election, known in Boston as a preliminary election, was held on September 9, 2025. The election was held concurrently with the 2025 Boston City Council election. Incumbent mayor Michelle Wu successfully ran for re-election to a second term. Wu and nonprofit executive Josh Kraft advanced to the general election after being the top-two finishers in a preliminary election (nonpartisan primary) held on September 9, with Wu receiving approximately 72% of the vote and Kraft receiving approximately 23%. However, on September 11 (two days after the preliminary election) Kraft announced he was ending his campaign and formally withdrew his name from the ballot on September 12. Kraft's requested withdrawal from the ballot was officially confirmed by the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office on September 15. The withdrawal of a candidate from the general election ballot had been unprecedented in Boston since the city began using its current format for mayoral elections in 1951. Kraft's withdrawal left Wu as the only candidate on the general election ballot, making her the city's first mayor to be unopposed for re-election in a general election since Thomas Menino in 1997. Wu's general election vote share of more than 93% is the greatest received by any Boston mayoral candidate since 1874. The 78,997 votes Wu received in the general election are the second-most received by a Boston mayoral candidate since 1983. The vote share Wu received in the nonpartisan preliminary was the highest received by any candidate since Boston began holding nonpartisan primaries, and the number of votes she received in the preliminary was the third-most (surpassed only by John Hynes and James Michael Curley, both in 1951).