Some Things Changed, But Others Stayed The Same: A Look At Boston's Election Results
Boston voters transformed city government up and down the ballot two weeks ago, electing Michelle Wu as Mayor based on her bold vision for the city, her deep roots in its movements, and her years building trust on the city council through policy and constituent services. After the preliminary election in September, we noted that Wu had built relationships over years, steadily earning durable support from cycle to cycle rather than rebuilding from scratch every two years. At the time, we wrote that Michelle Wu’s coalition was poised to elect her Mayor, and that “if she becomes our next Mayor, Michelle Wu will need to continue building and expanding her coalition to make every Bostonian in every neighborhood a true partner in government.”
While Mayor Wu’s victory was historic, it was far from unexpected. Analysts everywhere from the MassINC Polling Group to our live Election Night spreadsheet based on crowd-sourced data expected a decisive win for the Wu campaign, and that’s what we saw. That’s why for this recap, we’ll be focusing on the City Council and ballot question results, which got less attention but are no less meaningful for the future of the city.
On Election Day, the city supported progressive candidates and ballot initiatives up and down the ballot, demonstrating the impact and future potential of deep democracy and movement building campaigns to flip the playbook beyond Boston and statewide. All three ballot questions saw decisive results. Every single precinct voted “No” on Question 2, soundly rejecting a non-binding question on the East Boston substation, and “Yes” on Question 3, overwhelmingly backing an elected School Committee in a similar non-binding question. The only binding vote — on changes to the city’s budget process and charter — was somewhat more contested, with narrower majorities in whiter and more conservative neighborhoods, but also passed overwhelmingly.
Deep Democracy Analysis: Support for Michelle Wu, the Movement Councilors Who Will Hold Her Accountable, and the Budgetary Powers They Need To Do So
Many of the same voters who gave Michelle Wu a landslide victory also voted to build the infrastructure that will drive this governing partnership, electing City Councilors committed to community accountability and passing Question 1 to build a more collaborative budget process. In the City Council results, there was a clear correlation between precinct-level support for Michelle Wu, Julia Mejia, and Kendra Hicks. Mejia devoted her first term to increasing access to political participation for Boston residents while Hicks framed her campaign around a commitment to “bring the margins to the center.” All three progressive candidates emphasized community participation in government as cornerstones of their campaigns.
Ballot Question 1, which shifts some budgetary powers from the Mayor to the City Council and establishes a new Office of Participatory Budgeting, was also more popular in precincts with more Michelle Wu voters. While the “Wu train” mobilized a city-wide coalition seeking big transformative change, those voters also voted to give their city councilors more voice in the budgeting process. While turnout was less than half what we saw in the presidential election just a year ago—in-keeping with norms from other recent municipal elections— many of the voters who did show up across the city are clearly looking for big change and collaboration from Boston’s next Mayor and City Councilors, while others are looking for moderate voices like City Councilor Michael Flaherty and At Large City Councilor-Elect Erin Murphy. In all, these ballot questions and election results show a city government moving towards systems and policies of shared governance in a city where power is being deeply contested across its neighborhoods.
The mayoral and at-large maps shows us a city where the Deep Democracy coalition of Black, Latino, and Asian residents and young white progressives has secured representation at the highest level of government, but where traditional high-turnout communities like West Roxbury and North Dorchester still wield substantial political power. As our president Wilnelia Rivera noted in Denterlein’s recent In The News panel discussion, Michelle Wu overcame this power only by building a durable, city-wide coalition over her years in office, and both this coalition and Boston’s conservative white power centers are already seeking to shape her administration.
These relationships illustrate the difference between a mandate for a politician and a mandate for a vision and movement. Wu has a clear mandate for her policy vision. Yet she will only deliver it in partnership with a city council that has an equally clear mandate: to bring communities into city government, and to write a collaborative budget and roadmap for the future of Boston. Crucially, both are accountable to the same Deep Democracy coalition: voters of color, movement organizations across neighborhoods, and young progressives. If both the Council and the Mayor-elect deliver on their mandates, we will see an unprecedented case study in shared governance in the coming years.
In this spirit of democratizing politics, we are also excited to share our interactive maps of the city’s election results in every race contested on the ballot this year. We’ve shared how we see the results, but we’re committed to giving every resident the tools and access to the same information that we have. Every map is available in the interactive slide deck below.
Let us and #bospoli know what they say to you!
