Josh Kraft helped by dad, rich pals in bid to oust Boston mayor

 Josh Kraft is a political novice seeking to become the first person in 76 years to unseat an incumbent mayor in Boston - and a popular one at that. Yet the money is flowing in.

Kraft, 58, has already raised more money in an election year than any other mayoral campaign in Boston history - and that’s with the Nov. 4 contest against Mayor Michelle Wu months away. The super political action committee backing his candidacy is on track to smash city records for outside spending with more than $2.5 million going to fund advertisements, billboards and text messages, according to campaign finance records.

It helps that his father is Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots football team, who has a net worth of $8.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Donations backing Kraft’s mayoral run have poured in from wealthy individuals who run in the same elite circle - including those with few ties to Boston. Fanatics Inc. founder Michael Rubin, hedge fund titan John Paulson and Cleveland Browns owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam have made six- or seven-figure contributions.

“That’s what fathers do. They support their kids, as kids and adults,” Josh Kraft said of his father’s effort to drum up donations from rich and famous friends. He compared it to helping one of his two adult daughters, a singer, navigate her own career. “When I know there are places where she might be able to get a gig, and I know the people there, I say, ‘Hey, would you ever…?’” he said.

Kraft entered the race in February, betting he can dethrone Wu based on his decades as a local nonprofit leader and a name synonymous with success in the sports-crazed city. A Democrat, he’s positioning himself as a moderate alternative to the more progressive Wu, who was just 36-years old when she was elected as mayor in 2021.

Combined, Kraft’s campaign and super PAC have raised $6.3 million so far, including a $2 million contribution from the candidate himself. Kraft’s self-funding alone is more than Wu and a super PAC that’s supporting her have raised in total so far this year, with the most significant donations coming from labor and environmental groups. The average per-donor contribution to Kraft’s side is more than 13 times that of Wu’s.

Kraft’s effort has drawn comparisons to Levi Strauss & Co. heir Daniel Lurie - another political novice with a family fortune - who became San Francisco’s mayor this year after a successful campaign backed by around $9 million of his own money to unseat incumbent London Breed. But the candidate with the most money doesn’t always win.

A super PAC backing Andrew Cuomo in the New York City mayor’s race raised nearly $25 million from finance and real estate titans, including Michael R. Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP. It resulted in the single largest independent expenditure in a city election in the 15 years since the Supreme Court paved the way for virtually unlimited outside spending, but Cuomo was easily beaten by Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist.

A Saint Anselm College poll in April showed Wu had a 53% to 21% lead over Kraft among likely Boston voters.

That hasn’t stopped deep-pocketed donors from stepping up. Rubin, whose sporting apparel company has major offices in Florida, New York and California and who counts Robert Kraft as a close friend, contributed $1 million to the pro-Kraft super PAC, while the Haslams donated $50,000 apiece.

Paulson, a major Republican donor who was under consideration for the role of Treasury secretary in President Donald Trump’s second administration, contributed $100,000. In 2015, Paulson gave $400 million to Harvard University to endow the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, whose campus now bears his name and is located in Boston.

Other contributors include National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell, Los Angeles Chargers owner Dean Spanos, Paramount Global Chair Shari Redstone and New York lawyer Brad Karp, whose firm Paul Weiss struck a controversial settlement with Trump through negotiations that the New York Times has reported Robert Kraft helped set up. They all gave $1,000 apiece, the maximum annual individual direct campaign contribution allowed by state law.

Representatives for the donors didn’t respond to requests for comment.

While the financial support from famous out-of-towners and Kraft himself is material, accounting for about half of the total haul, the rest of the money backing his campaign primarily comes from Massachusetts donors, including business leaders unhappy with Boston’s current leadership.

“A lot of the businesses don’t feel like they are being treated as a partner by the current administration, and I think that frustrates them,” Kraft said.

New Balance Chair Jim Davis, whose sneaker company is based in Boston’s Brighton neighborhood, contributed $1 million to the pro-Kraft super PAC, while Boston Celtics minority owner and telecommunications executive Rob Hale has given $100,000. Hale declined to comment as did Davis, who also spent heavily to try to defeat Wu during her first mayoral campaign four years ago.

Business leaders have historically been reluctant to publicly buck incumbents in Boston, fearful of retribution via a rejected tax break or slow-walked permit. Wu, however, has drawn the business community’s ire by seeking to raise commercial property taxes and creating new real estate development requirements that are meant to boost affordable-housing stock but critics deride as project killers.

“It is difficult to understand how a mayor could show such indifference to the business community, which is so critical to the economic foundation of Boston,” said Bruce Percelay, a real estate developer who has donated to Wu in the past but in March contributed the maximum $1,000 to the Kraft campaign. “Josh Kraft has demonstrated a willingness to not only speak with members of the business community, but to consider ideas to improve the business climate in this city.”

The CEOs of major employers in the Boston area including insurer Liberty Mutual, online retailer Wayfair Inc. and laboratory equipment maker Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. have also contributed to Kraft’s campaign.

Still, Wu’s campaign has pounced on the influx of outside money, accusing Kraft of trying to “buy the election” with his family’s wealth and connections. The campaign has also criticized Kraft for only recently establishing residency in Boston after living in a wealthy suburb bordering the city for much of his life. “Boston is not for sale,” the Wu campaign said in a statement in May. A spokesperson declined to comment further.

Kraft’s reliance on his family fortune and donations from his father’s associates has also made it trickier for him to distance himself from Robert Kraft’s connections to Trump in the solidly Democratic city of Boston. The younger Kraft has said he doesn’t support Trump and has never voted for him.

Wu, however, has sought to tie Kraft to Trump through some of his supporters, including Paulson. She’s been leaning into her newfound role as a leader of resistance to the Trump administration, accusing US immigration officials of operating like a secret police force and vowing to pepper the organization with information requests about deportations.

The Environmental League of Massachusetts PAC contributed $175,000 in support of Wu, while Karen Firestone, an investment manager and the mother of Wu’s chief of policy and strategic planning, Mike Firestone, donated $100,000. The mayor has also drawn support from executives including WilmerHale litigator Bill Lee and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. founder Joshua Boger, Boston-area residents who contributed $25,000 and $5,000 to the PAC, respectively. Former Blackstone Inc. President Tony James, a New York resident, gave $1,000 to Wu’s campaign.

Still, the Kraft side’s vast resources have allowed it to spend nearly five times as much as Wu’s so far this election. The pro-Kraft ads have focused on issues such as the proliferation of bike lanes that Boston businesses say have curbed foot traffic and complicated deliveries, as well as Wu’s commitment of city funds to the construction of a new stadium that will be used by a professional women’s soccer team.

“The politics of Boston have been traditionally a little sleepy” and haven’t attracted the kind of spending being done by Kraft’s backers, said David Schleicher, a Yale Law School professor who studies city elections. “Part of it now is that you have a very dynamic prominent mayor, and then you have a really rich person who wants to be mayor.”