Boston mayoral election results: Michelle Wu and Annissa Essaibi George are two finalists for the city’s most prestigious position

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For two centuries, Boston elected only white men as mayor. That will change this fall. Wu took a clear lead once the release of votes in Tuesday’s non-partisan preliminary elections accelerated overnight. She is Asian American and Essaibi George, who emerged to claim second place, is a first generation American whose father emigrated from Tunisia and whose mother was born in Germany to Polish parents.

Despite their breakthroughs, there will be disappointment among supporters of Acting Mayor Kim Janey and City Councilor Andrea Campbell, who saw this campaign as an opportunity for Boston to elect its first-ever black mayor. Janey took over the post on a temporary basis after former Mayor Marty Walsh stepped down earlier this year to join President Joe Biden’s administration but, like Campbell, was excluded from the general election.

On Wednesday morning, Wu has a solid lead with over 33% of the vote, while George follows with around 22%. The winner in November will serve a full four-year term.

The only top-tier man, John Barros, the town’s economic development chief under Walsh, was seen as a big outsider. He lags far behind the other major candidates.

“It has been an honor to be a part of this historic estate,” Wu told reporters early Wednesday morning. “Over the past year, we’ve seen an incredible conversation in every neighborhood, in every community, so I’m honored to be a part of this moment in Boston and very happy to make sure we keep the work going, keep the energy to go out with every voter, knock on doors and have conversations about what’s possible in this city. ”

On Tuesday night, Essaibi George – ahead of the race call but with results shaping up in her favor – projected confidence as she addressed supporters.

“Bostonians deserve results, real change and real progress,” she said, after praising the “service sisters” who have become her campaign rivals. “I will be the teacher, the mother and the mayor to do it.”

In the home stretch of the campaign, Wu, the first woman of color to lead city council when she took over as president in 2016, has emerged as the overwhelming favorite to finish ahead of the pack. Campbell, Janey and Essaibi George were grouped together, separated by just a few percentage points, according to a recent poll from Suffolk University and the Boston Globe.

“The run for second place will not only be determined by the undecided voters and the respective efforts to exit the vote by the candidates, but also by Wu’s soft voters who may choose to vote for their second choice instead in order to control the selection of the two finalists, ”wrote the director of the Center for Policy Research at Suffolk University, David Paleologos, when publishing the poll.

The investigation came ahead of back-to-back debate evenings last week, two mostly tame cases after weeks of escalating clashes, including between Campbell and Janey. In the end, however, it looks like Essaibi George benefited the most, as she managed to stake the moderate lane with a more police-friendly platform. Others, like Wu and Campbell, are pushing for deeper structural changes in the department. Essaibi George, meanwhile, gained the support of former Boston Police Commissioner William Gross, the first black person to hold the post.

Janey, who as a child participated in the City’s School Transportation Program, an initiative designed to integrate Boston schools that has met with backlash in some predominantly white neighborhoods, took office in March after Walsh’s confirmation at Biden’s cabinet as labor secretary. In April, she announced she would run for a full term.

“Thinking that we would have a black mayor in my lifetime, even though we had a black president, always seemed out of reach,” Janey told CNN in April. “That we have one and that it’s actually me, it’s pretty mind-blowing.”

Turnout tends to be low in the preliminary elections, which added to the uncertainty of the race as it entered its final days. Some agents believed the state’s new no-excuse mail voting option could cause the numbers to rise slightly, but early indications from Tuesday night suggest the swell never materialized.

Although Walsh did not approve the preliminaries, the state’s most prominent Democrat, Senator Elizabeth Warren, is backing Wu, one of her former students at Harvard Law School. Wu volunteered for Warren’s Senate nomination in 2012 and was first elected to city council a year later.

“Michelle has always been a fighter – as a student of mine, as a Boston city councilor, and now as a mayoral candidate,” Warren said in a statement announcing her support in January. “She is a tireless advocate for families and communities that feel invisible and inaudible.”

The Sunrise movement in Boston also supports Wu, as well as other leading environmental groups and unions, including Teamsters Local 25 and United Auto Workers Region 9A. But the race to support labor has been widely divided. AFSCME Council 93, along with the Fire Union and IBEW Local 2222, all supported Essaibi George, while SEIU Local 888 and 32BJ SEIU supported Janey.

Campbell was the choice of the Boston Globe Editorial Board, which argued his case earlier this month.

“It exudes a sense of urgency, a palpable hunger to tackle Boston’s most difficult and political challenges – its uneven schools and a law enforcement system that has lost the trust of too many residents,” said writes the board. “That motivation, coupled with her nuanced thinking about what can make the city more vibrant and fair, is what sets it apart from its opponents in this year’s municipal elections.”

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