The prime bout in Boston politics this fall is the match-up between Mayor Michelle Wu and challenger Josh Kraft. But the battle for four citywide seats on the City Council is the undercard, featuring a Wu nemesis who wants back on the 13-member body.
Frank Baker spent more than a decade in City Hall as a councilor representing the neighborhood of Dorchester. He didn’t run for reelection in 2023, and his farewell party, inside the local firefighters union hall, drew both friends and foes. Despite his blustery clashes with the mayor and her progressive allies on the council, Wu presented Baker with a street sign that read “Frank Baker Way.”
Now Baker is back on the campaign trail, and poised to return to the council. Unable to parlay his time on the City Council into a lucrative private job like some of his former colleagues, he’s turned his attention to grabbing one of the four citywide seats. City councilors’ salaries are due to rise to $125,000 in 2026.
Whether he’ll be his old volcanic self upon return, or a more even-tempered Baker, is an open question pondered inside and outside City Hall. But the city’s political class widely views him as having a strong shot at making it through the Sept. 9 preliminary and getting one of the four at-large seats in November.
That means he faces the task of unseating one of the incumbents. Henry Santana, elected in 2023, is eyed by some insiders as the most vulnerable. He had Mayor Wu to thank for his first run – “I couldn’t have done this without you,” he told her on election night – and Wu operatives stepped in to help him earlier this year as he struggled to gather 1,500 voter signatures required to get on the ballot.
Councilors at-large are often seen as most endangered in their first reelection attempt, but it doesn’t always play out that way. Back in 2011, the chattering class viewed Ayanna Pressley as imperiled, and she went on to top the ticket, the first person of color and first woman in 30 years to do so. Julia Mejia, after winning by one vote in 2019, returned in 2021.
Baker, for his part, is getting some help from friends. He outraised the field in both June and July, and netted $5,000 from the Kraft family. Aside from maxing out to his son Josh, Robert Kraft’s sole $1,000 Massachusetts donation this year has gone to Baker. Baker also received money from the real estate sector and union officials.
He also has a childhood friend in his corner: Marty Walsh, the former mayor and Biden labor chief, and current NHL union president. Outside Walsh’s home in Lower Mills, on the Milton-Boston border, there is a lawn sign for Baker and no one else.
Who was the last Boston city councilor to make a successful return bid? Let me know if you have the answer without Googling: [email protected].
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HAPPENING TODAY
9:30 | Boston Mayor Michelle Wu will " respond to the recent letter from the Department of Justice and highlight the community policing, partnerships, and investments that make Boston the safest major city in America." | City Hall Plaza, Boston
10:00 | Labor Secretary Lauren Jones, Curry College President Jay Gonzalez, state and local officials, and others participate in a press conference to announce Employment Program for Young Adults with Disabilities (YAWD) grant awards. | Curry College Student Center, 1071 Blue Hill Ave., Milton | Livestream
11:15 | Boston Mayor Wu, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey and U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley hold a press conference to discuss the impact that fare-free public transit policies have had on Boston and other Mass. communities, and to announce reintroduction of federal legislation to expand transit equity. | Ruggles Station, 1150 Tremont St., Roxbury
12:00 | Massachusetts TPS Committee and TPS Alliance hold press conference to "denounce cruelty and lawlessness" of a Trump administration appeal seeking to overturn a judge's decision that protects Temporary Protected Status holders from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua. | JFK Federal Building, 15 Sudbury St., Boston
2:00 | Gov. Maura Healey discusses housing challenges on Nantucket at Wiggles Way, a recently completed housing development on the island. | 31 Fairgrounds Rd, Nantucket
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NEW KRAFT AD HITS TRUMP — AND WU
Ahead of the Sept. 9 preliminary, Josh Kraft’s mayoral campaign is going up with an ad that tries a two-step: Hitting both Donald Trump and Mayor Michelle Wu. “Mayor Wu and I agree: Donald Trump is unhinged,” Kraft says in the opening, before blaming Wu for Boston’s high cost of living and her push to expensively rehab White Stadium. He ends the 30-second ad with, “I’ll fight Trump and make Boston more affordable.”
A campaign spokesperson declined to disclose a dollar figure for how much they’re spending to air the ad, titled “The Difference,” but said it’ll be seen on broadcast, streaming and digital.
Kraft’s Trump criticism is a shift that has played out over several weeks, first seen in campaign mailers sent to voters like the one quoting Kraft calling the president a “lunatic.” That came after Kraft distanced himself from his father Robert’s relationship with Trump, while the Wu campaign, and a union-backed super PAC aligned with the mayor, repeatedly hit the Kraft campaign over donors who have a history as Trump supporters.
Down 30 points in polling, Kraft recently told Bloomberg that his metric for success in the September preliminary is a margin of defeat of 15 points or less.
FROM BEACON HILL
VOTE BY MAIL: Bill Galvin, the state’s elections chief, defends mail-in voting as safe and secure as well as popular. President Trump wants to end its use, despite GOP gains and benefits from the practice. – GBH News
LAWN VIDEO: The Boston Police Department released bodycam video of Rep. John Lawn’s arrest after a public records request from media outlets. – Boston Herald
STORAGE SPACE: Massachusetts is close to the first of at least four solicitations of energy storage capacity, considered a key to the clean energy transition. – State House News Service
BALLOT OBJECTION: The Fiscal Alliance Foundation is objecting to a proposed rent control ballot question, filing its opposition with Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office. – Boston Herald
NEWS NEXT DOOR
LAB PROJECT FORECLOSURE: The life sciences market in Massachusetts is struggling, and one example is Avidia Bank’s potential to lose $17 million on a Medford lab project. Two years ago, the bank had provided a $25 million mortgage to Boston-based Rise Construction Management. The site heads to a foreclosure auction today. – Banker & Tradesman
COUNCIL TO COURT: New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell and the City Council are clashing over whether the body has the power and responsibility to confirm his appointment of the police chief. Shane Burgo, the council’s president, says he’ll take the mayor to court over the issue. – New Bedford Light
DOWN THE TRACK: A sinkhole in New York is affecting Amtrak service in Massachusetts, and offering a reminder of the long road ahead for the rail project connecting Springfield and Boston. – Western Mass. Politics & Insight
TOURISM TROUBLES: International overnight and nighttime visits to Boston were down more than 10% in June, and a decrease in tourism across the state has local officials looking with hopeful eyes to 2026. – Boston Business Journal
YEAH, BUOY: The U.S. Coast Guard put on hold a plan to remove buoys, used to navigate rock ledges in New England waters, after federal lawmakers joined mariners in pushing back on the proposal. – Eagle-Tribune
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