LET THE BATTLE BEGIN — Boston politics, the saying goes, is a contact sport — and both sides in Boston’s mayoral race are already throwing some elbows. Josh Kraft, officially a candidate, took an opening crack at Boston Mayor Michelle Wu for an array of perceived faults and follies — depicting her as “a mayor that just does not listen” in his announcement speech and warning about slowed housing production under her tenure. Wu hit back, welcoming the longtime Newton resident not to the race, but to the city. “Frankly, I’m a little surprised that someone who hasn’t even voted for mayor or City Council in the city thinks that he is ready to lead the city,” Wu told reporters at an unrelated event Tuesday afternoon. “But I look forward to getting into the details, and there’s so much to talk about.” Kraft responded to the response in a statement Tuesday night, knocking one of the city councilors Wu endorsed who hadn’t been registered to vote until shortly before he was set to appear on the ballot. The councilor, Henry Santana, shot back on X. And with that, we’re off to the start of what the Boston politics world widely expects will be a bitter battle for control of City Hall that’ll put progressive policies to the test. Kraft used his launch to preempt some of attacks that’ll likely be lobbed at him, joking that he “was born on home plate,” asking voters to look beyond his last name and highlighting his decades of philanthropic work in the city. Still, he spent about as much time pitching prospective supporters on why they should join him as why they shouldn’t back Wu, criticizing her policies and in some cases offering his own alternatives. One line of attack: That Wu hasn’t followed through on the big-picture campaign promises she laid out in 2021. “When it comes to the mayor’s big campaign promises to make the MBTA free for Boston residents, to put in place a rent-control program and to launch a Green New Deal for Boston schools, she’s 0 for 3,” Kraft told the room Tuesday. It’s tough to fully fault Wu for some of those failures. Rent control proposals have made the rounds in the Legislature for several sessions (A ballot question was even briefly batted around last year.) with little success. And while Boston has its own fare-free bus pilot, Gov. Maura Healey favored a reduced fare program for low-income riders over making the whole system free in her budget last year. Kraft told reporters after his speech that he views the Legislature as “allies.” But as many municipal officials know too well: It’s hard to bend Beacon Hill to your will — even if, like Wu, you have some well-placed allies. And it's unclear how exactly he’d be able to convince legislators to budge. Right now, Kraft’s campaign seems to be leaning more on opposition to Wu than on his own ideological vision for the city. Even the policy proposals he offered (a pause on bike lane construction, for example) were tied to criticism of Wu. The risk: failure to lay out a bulletproof answer to the question “why are you running?” beyond dissatisfaction with the incumbent can be fatal. In any case, Wu’s operation isn’t taking the challenge lightly. The event where the mayor took a swipe at Kraft? That was at a community center a two-minute walk from Prince Hall, where Kraft announced his campaign hours earlier. GOOD WEDNESDAY MORNING, MASSACHUSETTS. Wu’s campaign is also hosting a call with supporters tonight to “share some updates,” per an email sent to supporters Monday evening. And she’s rolling out endorsements from a slate of Boston electeds today: FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — State Reps. Dan Ryan, Bill MacGregor, Adrian Madaro and Rob Consalvo, and City Councilors Henry Santana, Enrique Pepén, Sharon Durkan and Ben Weber are all endorsing Wu for reelection today, according to her campaign. Wu also blew past the $10,000 fundraising goal that her campaign set for the day in a morning email blast Tuesday. By last night, they had pulled in more than $25,000 from 240 donors, according to her campaign, including donors from every neighborhood in the city. More on Kraft's launch from CommonWealth Beacon and GBH News. TODAY — Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll hold a Black History Month celebration at 2 p.m. at the State House. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is on “Java with Jimmy” at 10 a.m.
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