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Photo courtesy of Michelle Wu
A new poll sponsored by WBUR and the Dorchester Reporter newspaper puts at-large City Councilor Michelle Wu in pole position as the Boston mayoral race officially opens with acting Mayor Kim Janey close behind.
Candidates flocked to City Hall yesterday to apply for nominating papers, which will be due May 18 along with 3,000 certifiable signatures from city residents.
The poll, conducted by the MassINC Polling Group, surveyed 552 registered voters in Boston about their impressions of the current slate of declared mayoral candidates and how they rank the most important issues facing the city.
The race is being closely watched by members of the real estate community given the near-total power Boston’s mayor has over development in the city.
Wu emerged from the poll with the greatest support: 47 percent of respondents said they had a favorable opinion of her, while a mere 19 percent said they had heard of her and were undecided and another 21 percent said they had never heard of her. Among the candidates, she also had the highest unfavorable rating – 11 percent – likely explained by her prominent place in the city’s landscape for several years.
Janey came in second with the next-highest favorability rating, with 34 percent of respondents saying they had a favorable opinion, but 35 percent saying they hadn’t heard of her and 24 percent saying they had heard of her but were undecided.
| Candiate | Favorable | Unfavorable | Heard of/Undecided | Never Heard Of | Refused |
| Marty Walsh | 59% | 20% | 10% | 8% | 2% |
| Michelle Wu | 47% | 11% | 19% | 21% | 1% |
| Kim Janey | 34% | 5% | 24% | 35% | 1% |
| Annissa Essaibi-George | 27% | 5% | 22% | 44% | 1% |
| Andrea Campbell | 26% | 6% | 25% | 42% | 1% |
| John Barros | 17% | 6% | 25% | 50% | 2% |
| Jon Santiago | 13% | 5% | 24% | 57% | 2% |
The poll also compared the candidates to former Mayor Marty Walsh. Wu and Campbell, who declared their candidacies before Walsh was nominated by President Joe Biden to be his secretary of labor, have been critical of Walsh’s administration. At-large City Councilor Essaibi-George has explicitly promoted her candidacy as a continuation of Walsh’s administration and John Barros, Walsh’s longtime top economic development official, is also tied in some ways to the prior mayor’s record.
Just under half of all voters in the poll (46 percent) said they are undecided, however, with only 19 percent saying they had chosen to back Wu and another 18 percent backing Janey. No other candidate scored support from more than 6 percent of respondents.
Voters ranked COVID-19 as the most important issue facing the city by far, with 27 percent picking it as the “single biggest” topic. The next-most-important issue, housing costs, only scored support from 18 percent of respondents. No other issue in the 15 polled, including traffic, schools, crime and “race relations,” were chosen by more than 6 percent of respondents.
