BOSTON (AP) — Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, a frequent target of the Trump administration, advanced in Tuesday’s preliminary election and will face Josh Kraft, the son of the Patriots owner, in November.
Wu, the city’s first Asian and female leader, has been bolstered in part by her defense of the city against attacks from the Trump administration. Members of the administration, often led by President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan, have accused the city of not doing enough to crackdown on illegal immigration and threatened a surge in arrests. Boston is commonly known as a sanctuary city, and Wu has repeatedly said she wants it to be a welcoming place for immigrants.
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"I Voted" stickers rest on a ballot box at a polling place, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Boston mayoral candidate Josh Kraft campaigns outside a polling place, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu smiles after voting at a polling place, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Nonprofit leader and Boston mayoral candidate Josh Kraft, son of Patriots owner Robert Kraft, speaks about his campaign with residents while canvassing on Friday, Sept. 5, 2025, in Dorchester, Mass. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham)
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu carries her daughter Mira after voting at a polling place, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Sunrise peeks through campaign signs of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and challenger Josh Kraft at a polling place, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Nonprofit leader and Boston mayoral candidate Josh Kraft, son of Patriots owner Robert Kraft, speaks to a reporter about his campaign while canvassing on Friday, Sept. 5, 2025, in Dorchester, Mass. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham)
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu votes with her children Blaise, Cass and Mira, from left, at a polling place, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Just last week, Trump’s U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Wu, the city of Boston and its police department over its sanctuary city policies, claiming they’re interfering with immigration enforcement. In response, Wu accused Trump of “attacking cities to hide his administration’s failures.”
On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security put out a statement announcing the arrests of seven people as part of a crackdown in Massachusetts.
“Sanctuary policies like those pushed by Mayor Wu not only attract and harbor criminals but protect them at the peril of law-abiding American citizens," Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
Speaking to her cheering supporters Tuesday night, Wu repeatedly took aim at Trump as well as Kraft and said the results showed that Boston “was not for sale” and that the mayor should answer to the “people of Boston, not a handful of billionaire donors.”
“The next eight weeks are about the remaining two names on the ballot. It’s a test of who we are. It’s a test of whether we believe in our city as a place of possibility and promise, whether Boston will keep going as a home for everyone,” she said. “It’s a test of whether Boston can still be that beacon of freedom, whether 250 years later, with tyranny again at our door, whether Boston still got it.”
Kraft, a fellow Democrat and a nonprofit leader, injected millions of his own personal money into his campaign and set records for spending in a Boston mayoral preliminary election. He has also been critical of Trump's attacks and has pushed Wu particularly hard on housing, saying she hasn’t done enough to increase options and affordability in Boston.
Speaking to Ironworkers Local 7 in South Boston, Kraft said he was running because residents deserved to have a mayor “who listened to them” and would “deliver better streets, better schools, and a better future for them today.” He argued Wu was talking about Trump to distract from her record.
“I got into this fight because every day, I heard that too many people across Boston felt like that they don’t have a seat at the table,” he told supporters. “This campaign has never been about chasing headlines or currying favor with the political chattering class. It’s been about listening.”
Wu and Kraft bested two other candidates in the preliminary election: former school district committee member and veteran Robert Cappucci and community activist Domingos Darosa.
While visiting polls Tuesday, Wu said the Trump administration is targeting Boston because it “represents all that is good about our democracy.”
“We are proof of what’s possible when people come together, and we’re proof of everything that shows why they are wrong,” she said.
Wu, who often works with her infant daughter at her side, has also benefited from widespread support on the City Council and a string of endorsements from Democratic leaders. She also has used the pulpit of her position to highlight her successes around housing, combating climate change and reducing crime, rolling out a series of initiatives all summer.
David Woodruff, a retired research support specialist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said he was supporting Wu because he wants “people who are progressive and are strengthening democracy" in office.
“I like the way she stands up to Trump, I like what she’s been doing on the national scene," he said.
Kraft, who heads the Kraft Family Philanthropies and the New England Patriots Foundation, has targeted everything from bike paths to the cost of living in the city to his concerns about homelessness and drug addiction in one section of the city known as Mass and Cass.
Last week, Kraft and two top campaign advisers “mutually parted ways,” according to a statement from his campaign.
As of the end of August, Kraft had outspent Wu, $5.5 million to about $1.1 million, thanks in large part to more than $5 million in loans from the candidate to his campaign. Wu entered the final days of the campaign with much more cash in the bank, $2.4 million to about $1.3 million for Kraft.
Jeffrey Berry, a Boston political analyst and professor emeritus at Tufts University, said money is good for creating name recognition, but it’s not enough on its own to win an election. He said Wu has become a “symbol of democratic resistance to the president,” and that will be hard for Kraft to overcome in a city like Boston.
Kraft has switched between attacking Wu and portraying himself as someone who wants to bring positive change to the city.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Kraft said his conversations with voters indicate to him that Wu doesn’t have as strong a grip on the mayor’s seat as some might think.
“Everywhere we go, myself, our team, throughout the neighborhoods of this city — regardless of race, socioeconomics, ethnicity, language — we hear the same thing: People don’t feel listened to, people don’t feel connected to the mayor and the mayoral administration,” he said. “Some of the polls have a big margin, but let me tell you something: Polls don’t decide elections. People decide elections.”
Kraft supporter Remy Lawrence said she’s been impressed by his commitment to Boston’s young people. Kraft was CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston and worked with the organization for decades. Lawrence said Kraft personally reached out to her after her 13-year-old son, Tyler, who participated in Kraft family youth programming, was murdered by a gunman in 2023 while walking near his grandparents’ home in the Mattapan neighborhood.
“I believe we need change in this city – I know we need change in this city,” she said. “We need a leader who is accessible, who's accountable, who's connected."
"I Voted" stickers rest on a ballot box at a polling place, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Boston mayoral candidate Josh Kraft campaigns outside a polling place, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu smiles after voting at a polling place, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Nonprofit leader and Boston mayoral candidate Josh Kraft, son of Patriots owner Robert Kraft, speaks about his campaign with residents while canvassing on Friday, Sept. 5, 2025, in Dorchester, Mass. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham)
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu carries her daughter Mira after voting at a polling place, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Sunrise peeks through campaign signs of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and challenger Josh Kraft at a polling place, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Nonprofit leader and Boston mayoral candidate Josh Kraft, son of Patriots owner Robert Kraft, speaks to a reporter about his campaign while canvassing on Friday, Sept. 5, 2025, in Dorchester, Mass. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham)
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu votes with her children Blaise, Cass and Mira, from left, at a polling place, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025, in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Republicans have gathered in Dallas for the closing day of the party’s midterm convention that aims to highlight President Donald Trump ’s influence and boost enthusiasm among GOP voters ahead of November’s midterm election. Speakers at the two-day event have derided Democratic candidates as extremists and offered defenses of Trump’s war in Iran.
Trump and Vice President JD Vance were among those to address the crowd.
Trump pledged Wednesday during the convention to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections. The dubious promise would likely cost more than $1 trillion and require congressional approval, and would further fan inflation concerns and exacerbate the country’s nearly $1.8 trillion annual budget deficit.
Missouri’s Republican secretary of state has ordered local election authorities to use its 2022 congressional map instead of a congressional map backed by Trump after the Supreme Court struck it down earlier today. The decision means Missouri will run the general election with a different congressional map than was used in the primary.
An appeals court on Thursday upheld a block on Trump’s executive order limiting mail voting.
Here's the latest:
Trump concluded with a final plea: “Go out and vote.”
He turned the microphone over to opera performer Christopher Macchio, who belted out a soaring rendition of “America the Beautiful” as balloons fell.
Trump lingered and swayed to the music.
The president went on an extended riff about the size of his crowd in the American Airlines Center, the roughly 20,000-seat venue hosting the convention.
“Look at it,” Trump said. “The highest rafter, no empty seats.”
“Look at the upper ring. Look, everything is taken,” he continued. Even the “rich people boxes” were filled, he said.
However, nearly the entire upper deck was empty.
The media, he complained, will report that the room had empty seats.
Finally, after nearly three minutes of boasting, he acknowledged the elephant missing from the room.
“I gotta do a little bit better in the back,” he said.
“I’m not happy with it. That’s not good. I shouldn’t have looked up there,” he added.
Trump closed out the Republican convention by claiming the stock market had hit 80 highs, the job market is strong and he’s delivering on all of his promises to voters.
The happy talk in Dallas is a contrast to the bleak mood on Wall Street.
The S&P 500 is on a four-day losing streak, instead of setting new records. U.S. oil futures topped $100 a barrel as worries about the Iran war persist. And the inflation and high interest rates that Trump pledged to fix are causing new financial jitters.
The interest rate on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes on Thursday rose above 4.9%, meaning that the expense for mortgages, auto loans and other forms of debt has increased in ways that could slow growth.
The president said he didn’t plan to speak much Thursday at the Republican convention after his keynote address on Wednesday.
But he went on to riff anyway.
“We were a laughingstock all over the world,” Trump said, referring to his predecessor. “But we took that dark age of America and turned it into the golden age of America.”
Lee Greenwood was on stage to sing “God Bless the USA” as Vance left the stage and Trump walked out.
Vance and Trump shook hands as the vice president walked off.
The vice president said that Democrats have evolved into a group that stands against America, saying that the country should belong “to those that love it, not those that hate it.”
Vance touched a series of culturally loaded issues on race and immigration.
He took offense at the suggestion by Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, that Vance’s own grandfather would object to his marriage to a woman of Indian descent.
Vance said that Democrats now find sympathy with the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks in 2001 but not people like his grandfather.
“The Democrats are the party of hatred,” Vance said. “They’re the party that despises America and the people who built it.”
Vance implored undecided voters to recognize the Trump administration’s record and not hand control of Congress to Democrats.
“Don’t give the country over to a bunch of crazy people because you happen to disagree with us on a policy issue here or there. Look, I’m not asking anybody to agree with me on every single issue. I’m not asking anybody to agree on every single policy,” Vance said at the GOP midterm convention. “What I am asking you to do is to recognize the contrast with the radicals and recognize the achievements of the last 18 months.”
Without explicitly mentioning the Iran war, the vice president invoked conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who “hated war,” according to Vance.
“That was his view. Now, of course, there are people who love what we’ve done and people who don’t. I’m not here to litigate the disagreements between Charlie and some of the people that he disagreed with,” he said.
Vance claimed that “we actually took on big pharma and lowered drug costs for all of our citizens.”
Federal data shows that U.S. prescription drug prices fell 0.9% in July and are down 3.1% from a year ago, the steepest year-over-year drop since 1963. The White House said these plunging prices resulted from Trump’s “most favored nation” drug deal with pharmaceutical firms and the TrumpRx website.
But drug pricing experts say the real picture is more complicated, noting that other factors, including a law from former President Joe Biden’s time in office that allowed Medicare to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies, are potentially more significant contributors to the latest consumer price index figures.
Vance took a swipe at James Talarico, the Democratic Senate candidate.
He praised Trump for coining a nickname: Talafreako.
For his part, Talarico and his supporters have embraced that nickname, printing it on shirts and adopting it as a badge of honor.
Like many speakers across the two-day convention, Vance pointed to comments Talarico has made about religion and transgender Americans, including saying God is nonbinary.
“I got to say, a guy that age who is so obsessed and focused on transgender children, I don’t know about you, but I never want to see that guy’s web browser history,” Vance said.
Vance addressed speculation about his presidential ambitions.
“JD 48!” a woman yelled loudly from the stands, a reference to the next president, who will be the 48th. That prompted chants of “JD!” and “48!”
Vance responded by saying his focus for now is the midterms.
“We gotta take care of business this November and then we’ll worry about what comes next,” he said.
Vance invoked his family as he credited the president with building a bright future, while attacking the “far left” for working against their “birthright.”
Vance, the father of four including a six-week-old son, defended the nuclear family, which he said was being attacked by Democrats. He said he wants the same thing for American families as he does for his own.
“I want them to keep what they’ve earned when they work hard. And that is the birthright that I’m talking about. That is the country that Donald J. Trump is fighting every single day to defend and to build upon,” he said.
Vance opened his speech with an apparent defense of administration efforts to reduce immigration in the U.S.
Vance said voters were tired by factory closures, drug overdoses and crime and then pivoted to immigration.
“And we were tired of being called racists for noticing that our country was becoming dirtier and poorer and less safe and less prosperous,” Vance said.
The statement revealed the delicate politics at play on immigration. Vance falsely claimed during the 2024 election that Haitian immigrants in his home state of Ohio were abducting and eating pets, a falsehood that Trump repeated.
“History will record that your father was a great man,” Vance said.
He recalled being nervous to give his speech at the 2024 Republican National Convention less than two years after being elected to his first role in politics as an Ohio senator.
“As I addressed the country on the biggest stage of my life in the front row, right about there,” he said, pointing in front of him, “my dear friend Charlie Kirk was smiling and cheering me and reminding me that I had a good friend right here in the convention hall.”
Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, who took over as the leader of the Turning Point organization he founded, “has carried on his mission with more courage and resolve than most of us will ever be asked to show,” Vance said.
Vance opened his speech with an apparent defense of administration efforts to reduce immigration in the U.S.
Vance said voters were tired by factory closures, drug overdoses and crime and then pivoted to immigration.
“And we were tired of being called racists for noticing that our country was becoming dirtier and poorer and less safe and less prosperous,” Vance said.
The statement revealed the delicate politics at play on immigration. Vance falsely claimed during the 2024 election that Haitian immigrants in his home state of Ohio were abducting and eating pets, a falsehood that Trump repeated.
The vice president walked onto the stage after a secret riser behind the podium was revealed with a curtain raise, showing people waving American flags.
The crowd in the arena rose to their feet to welcome Vance as a hype video about him played on screens.
While Vance was met with cheers, the reception did not seem quite as loud as the welcome Kennedy and former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt got as they took the stage.
The president’s son said followers of the “Make America Great Again” movement will keep Kirk’s fight for conservatism alive.
Trump Jr. said that Kirk had inspired a movement to stand up to leftists.
“We will not back down,” Trump Jr. said. “We will not fold. We will honor Charlie by carrying his torch to save this nation that we all love so dearly.”
Trump Jr. said that Democrats wanted to “shove down our throats” a “hellscape.”
As Republicans gather in Dallas, the president is also deploying his cash in key midterm races.
No Going Back PAC Inc., which a person with knowledge of the situation said is connected to Trump’s MAGA Inc., has been buying up airtime during the convention. So far it has reserved more than $68 million in advertising.
The person was not authorized to speak publicly about the funding arrangement.
— By Thomas Beaumont
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lamented what he cast as the transformation of the Democratic Party of his father and uncle at the midterm GOP convention.
The son of a former U.S. attorney general and nephew of President John F. Kennedy, the secretary said the “irony of my presence here is inescapable.”
He enumerated his view that the party had abandoned working Americans for elites and said he found a new home in the Republican Party, eliciting loud cheers and applause.
“The Democratic Party, in short, lost its way,” he said.
A video marking the Sept. 11 attacks included images from the devastation and clips of then-President George W. Bush’s visit to ground zero and triumphant first pitch in the 2001 World Series.
It also included images of then-New York real estate figure Donald Trump striding into Manhattan and talking to media about employees for his business who were working at the time of the attack.
The video later turned to images of some Democratic figures who have been critical of U.S. foreign policy and offered more callous statements of the calamity.
The segment wrapped with images of Trump as president, suggesting he had shielded the U.S. from further similar attacks, as presidents since Bush have also done.
In the end, quiet, respectful applause lightly fluttered across the arena.
Christopher Macchio’s soaring tenor spiraled through the American Airlines Center, the strains of “Ave Maria” in an almost silent convention center.
It was the most solemn and poignant moment of the convention, a tribute to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
As Macchio’s voice filled the arena, the floor was darkened, though two beams of light stretched upward, reminiscent of the Twin Towers. Convention goers illuminated their mobile phone flashlights, giving the fitting illusion of candlelight.
The basketball arena’s screens fluttered with images of passenger aircraft striking the World Trade Center towers in New York, footage of frantic Manhattanites and debris-covered police, fire and rescue workers.
A narrator intoned “2,977 innocent people lost their lives,” as familiar videos transitioned to home videos of families.
“Always remember who they are,” the narrator said solemnly. “Say their names. Honor their sacrifice. Defend Freedom. Never forget September 11.”
Lawler, facing reelection in a battleground district this year, appealed to “common sense Democrats and independents” from the GOP midterm convention stage.
It was a different tone compared with the near constant attacks on Democrats.
“While I’m honored to be in this arena with so many fellow Republicans tonight, my message is really aimed at common sense Democrats and independents across the country tuning in and still undecided about their vote in November,” he said.
In an emotional presentation, Lawler appeared on stage with the family of Sheridan Gorman, who was fatally shot this year in Chicago. Officials have charged a man they say was illegally in the country with her slaying.
Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the underground website used for selling drugs, thanked Trump for pardoning him last year after being sentenced to life in prison in 2015.
“You gave me my life back, sir,” Ulbricht said while choking back tears.
Some in the crowd at the Republican midterm convention shouted that his plight was similar to that of those imprisoned for participating in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol. He said Trump was also a “target of weaponized government” after the indictments and investigations after his first term.
Ulbricht said there are hundreds of “decent Americans” who Trump freed from prison.
“I’ll be a block,” Trump said on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.” “I’ll end up being a blocker.”
The president suggested he still might be able to strike deals with Congress.
He also defended his promise to give $5,000 payments to each American if Republicans preserve their congressional majorities and said he might not need congressional approval.
He also said that faster economic growth would help to pay down the $40 trillion national debt over time. Growth so far is running lower under Trump than his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden.
GOP nominee Mike Rogers said his opponent is being funded by “terrorist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood,” but offered no proof to back up his claim.
Rogers sought to portray Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee and an epidemiologist, as a terrorist sympathizer because of his relationship with the podcaster Hasan Piker, a liberal online commentator and critic of Israel.
“They treat our country like it’s the villain,” Rogers said of his opponent and Piker.
El-Sayed distanced himself from Piker last month.
The normally festive and rowdy crowd inside the American Airlines Center quickly hushed. On the screen was a face known to many of the thousands in the basketball arena, as his voice, just as familiar, came back to life for just a few minutes.
During a five-minute homage to Kirk, the conservative organizer and former President of Turning Point USA shot to death a year ago, the Republican midterm convention sat uncharacteristically quiet.
Video of Kirk speaking and working with young adults, for which he became known as a speaker on college campuses, rolled on the huge screen, while his voice echoed through the silence.
At the short program’s end, a polite round of applause rippled through the seats.
Lucas Miles, a pastor and a Turning Point vice president, kicked off a tribute to Charlie Kirk on the one year anniversary of his death.
“They could take the man,” Miles said. “They could not take the mission.”
He ticked off a list of Turning Point’s accomplishments: thousands of chapters, more than a billion social media views.
“Turning Point is not dead,” Miles said. “The organization Charlie founded is still growing.”
Mike Johnson suggested that differences with Democrats have become irreconcilable, saying “next year the communists will be in Congress.”
“It now falls to us to fight to preserve the country that we love,” Johnson said. “It’s being attacked from within.”
The Trump presidency has been defined by a broader radicalization among Republicans and Democrats alike.
Democrats portray Trump as a corrupt actor who has violated the norms and constitutional standards governing the country, whereas Johnson and others at the GOP midterm convention have said that Democrats are now beholden to political radicals that should be rejected.
The House speaker claimed he has led “the most productive Congress in 80 years.”
Since the start of 2025, Congress has passed 105 laws, down from 274 laws passed in the prior Congress during the final two years of President Joe Biden’s term when Republicans held a majority in the House, according to Govtrack.us.
Vice President JD Vance speaks at the Republican convention, Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Vice President JD Vance speaks at the Republican convention Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Vice President JD Vance points to President Donald Trump at the Republican convention Thursday, Sept. 10, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump leaves the RNC Midterm Convention, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Donald Trump attends the RNC Midterm Convention, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, at the American Airlines Center in Dallas. (Eric Lee/Pool photo via AP)
President Donald Trump speaks at the Republican convention, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
