Majority of Boston Voters Approve of Wu Refusing to Drop Sanctuary City Policies, Oppose President Trump Sending National Guard to Boston
A new Emerson College Polling survey of Boston voters finds incumbent Mayor Michelle Wu with a significant lead over Josh Kraft in the preliminary election for mayor: 72% support Wu and 22% support Kraft. Since February, Wu’s support increased 29 percentage points, from 43% to 72%, while Kraft’s support decreased by seven points, from 29% to 22%.
“Over the past seven months, Mayor Wu appears to have made her case for re-election to Boston voters, while Kraft has not been able to expand his support,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said. “In February, white voters were split between Kraft and Wu, 39% to 37%; now, they break for Wu 74% to 22%. Wu’s margins among minority populations have also grown, increasing seven points among Hispanic voters, from 54% to 61%, climbing to 79% among Black voters, and jumping from 58% to 81% among Asian voters.”
Nearly 3 in 4 Boston voters (73%) have a favorable view of Wu, while 24% have an unfavorable view of the Mayor. A majority of voters (58%) hold an unfavorable view of Kraft, while 26% have a favorable view.
Wu holds a high approval among Boston voters: 66% approve of the job she is doing in office, while 24% disapprove. Regarding the Mayor’s refusal to drop Boston’s sanctuary city policies, 67% approve of this decision and 23% disapprove.
Boston voters disapprove of President Trump sending members of the National Guard to Boston to “combat crime” 77% to 20%. In the Emerson August national poll, 48% of voters disapprove of Trump deploying the National Guard in Boston, while 41% approve.
A plurality of voters (45%) think their community in Boston is safer than it was four years ago, while 21% think it is less safe; 35% think it is no different.
A third of Boston voters (33%) listed threats to democracy as the top issue facing the United States, while 17% said the economy, 12% housing affordability, 11% healthcare, 9% immigration, and 3% crime.
At the start of the 2025-26 school year, 54% think Boston Public Schools are headed in the right direction, while 46% think they are on the wrong track. This is a flip from February, where 54% said they were on the wrong track and 46% in the right direction.
Boston voters are split on bike lanes: 35% think there are too many, 35% think there are enough, and 30% think there are not enough bike lanes.
The redevelopment of White Stadium as a venue for Boston’s new National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) team is supported by voters 48% to 29%, with 23% undecided.
Boston voters overwhelmingly support a Boston-based WNBA team 78% to 8%.
Of the four major Boston-area sports teams, a plurality of voters (39%) expect the Boston Celtics to win the next championship in their respective sport, down from 65% in February. Fifteen percent think the Boston Red Sox will be the next to win a championship, 7% the Boston Bruins, and 3% the New England Patriots.
Methodology
The Emerson College Polling Boston survey was conducted September 2-3, 2025. The sample of likely voters, n=555, has a credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error (MOE), of +/- 4.1 percentage points. The data sets were weighted by gender, education, race, age, and party registration based on the voter file.
It is important to remember that subsets based on demographics, such as gender, age, education, and race/ethnicity, carry with them higher credibility intervals, as the sample size is reduced. Survey results should be understood within the poll’s range of scores, and with a confidence interval of 95% a poll will fall outside the range of scores 1 in 20 times.
Data was collected by contacting a voter list of likely voters via email and MMS-to-web texts using voter lists provided by Aristotle, and online panel interviews provided by CINT. Panel responses were matched to the Aristotle voter file using respondents’ full name and ZIP code. The survey was offered in English.
All questions asked in this survey with the exact wording, along with full results, demographics, and cross tabulations can be found under Full Results. This survey was funded by Emerson College.
