This issue won big in NYC’s mayoral race. Why Wu, Kraft should pay attention | Bay State Briefing

Good Monday Morning, everyone.

They might both hail from the City That Never Sleeps, but it’s safe to say that any similarities between President Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani pretty much end right there.

Even so, they both cruised to victory on one big issue. And it’s one that the leading candidates for Boston City Hall forget at their peril.

What is it? In a word: Affordability.

Republican Trump hammered Democratic President Joe Biden on inflation and rising costs last year, and voters listened.

Mamdani, a New York state assemblyman, doubled down on affordability, vowing to rein in housing costs and put child care back within reach of working families.

• Read More: These are the Big 3 issues to watch in Boston’s mayoral race — and one sleeper

He used it to beat former three-term Empire State Gov. Andrew Cuomo in last week’s Democratic primary. And that’s put him on course to claim the Mayor’s Office in November.

And that message particularly resonated with younger voters, who have lived through two recessions, and who do the hard math to pay both skyrocketing rent and hefty student loan bills.

In Boston, meanwhile, Democratic mayoral hopeful Josh Kraft and incumbent Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu have spent the last couple of weeks smacking each other silly over bike lanes and the cost of redeveloping White Stadium.

Sure, those are important issues. But Mamdani’s win is a reminder that elections are won and lost on the fundamentals, political analysts from both sides of the aisle told MassLive in separate interviews last week.

“The common denominator is that everything is unaffordable and no one is doing anything about it,” Democratic analyst Mary Anne Marsh, of Boston, said.

Here’s Jesse Hunt, a Washington-based Republican consultant with roots in Worcester County:

“It’s all about affordability. In these major metro areas, it’s ‘How do we make life more affordable?’” he said.

You don’t have to look any further than the numbers to understand why that’s the case. More Americans have a dim outlook on current economic conditions than those who have a rosy view, according to Gallup.

That takes on a particular urgency in Boston, which is one of the most expensive cities in the world to call home, and where housing costs, particularly, remain top of mind.

These are the same issues that Wu, then a member of Boston City Council, ran and won on during her first campaign in 2021 against Annissa Essaibi George, Marsh observed.

And there were echoes of that first Wu campaign in Mamdani’s City Hall bid, Marsh continued.

“If you close your eyes, you hear Michelle Wu four years ago talking about free buses, rent control and child care. Those are the common denominations and those feelings are only stronger now,” Marsh said. “You see it in the polls: People can’t afford to live where they live, [they] can’t afford child care or rent, but they’re watching as Trump can find money for tax cuts for billionaires.”

In a commentary for Politico about Mamdani’s victory, Wu raised similar issues.

“People are hungry for government to work again and to be proof that we can still come together and do big things and improve people’s lives,” she wrote. “That’s what I ran on four years ago. That’s what my administration has been focused on, and that’s what I’m running on in this reelection campaign as well.”

During his campaign launch in Dorchester in February, Kraft said the race was “not about ideology. It’s about getting results for the families and the people of the city, the citizens of the city,”

Hunt, the veteran of more than a few Republican campaigns, observed that now might be a good time for the two candidates to remind voters of that.

” … Clearly, there is economic angst everywhere, and whichever candidate taps into that the most acutely, will have the most success in their electoral battle,” he said.

Guess who’s back?

Reminding us that old pols are neither created nor destroyed, they just change form, former Massachusetts Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown has jumped into the 2026 GOP U.S. Senate race in New Hampshire.

“The reason I am running is a kind of fed up with the federal delegation. We’ve been blessed here in New Hampshire. We’ve had Gov. [Chris] Sununu, Gov.[Kelly] Ayotte, the Legislature, the Executive Council, all working very hard for years to protect the New Hampshire advantage — while we see in the federal delegation the over-taxation, overregulations,” Brown told WMUR-TV. “On the policy stuff, the open borders, the sanctuary cities, zealously fighting to protect the so-called rights of illegals.”

Once again, with feeling

It’s official: Massachusetts state House Speaker Ronald J. Mariano, D-3rd Norfolk, plans to run for reelection in 2026 and will seek another term in the House’s top spot in 2027.

Mariano, 78, confirmed his plans through a spokesperson. He was first elected in 1991, and ascended to the Speaker’s Rostrum in 2020, according to State House News Service.

“The Speaker is proud to be leading the House during this time of incredible uncertainty at the federal level. He looks forward to serving as Speaker for the remainder of this term, and intends to run for re-election,” the spokesperson, Ana Vivas, told State House News Service.

Gavel to Gavel

Massachusetts Democrats have drawn a straight line connecting the third anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that toppled Roe v. Wade to last week’s high court ruling that allows states to block Medicaid patients from using their coverage at Planned Parenthood clinics.

In the middle of it: Language in President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” that would further restrict access by choking off Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood that would ban insurance plans offered under the Affordable Care Act from covering abortion care in certain states.

It’s important to note here that abortion remains safe and legal in Massachusetts. But advocates say last week’s ruling “sets a dangerous precedent”

“While other states use the courts to defund and criminalize reproductive care, Massachusetts will continue to invest in it. The MassDems stand as a partner in the ongoing fight to protect the rights, safety and dignity of every patient and provider,” the state Democratic Party said in an email.

More on Reproductive Health Care

U.S. Reps. Lori Trahan, D-3rd District, and Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, are teaming up on legislation aimed at improving postpartum care for new mothers.

If it’s approved, the bill would make “pelvic health physical therapy more accessible for new mothers, especially those who rely on Medicaid,” the Lowell lawmaker said in a statement.

“Far too often, women’s postpartum health concerns are overlooked or dismissed, despite the serious and lasting impact they can have on quality of life,” Trahan said, adding that the bill is a “commonsense step … toward ensuring … that women receive the care and support they need after giving birth, we’re investing in stronger families and healthier communities.”

Monday Numbers

New data proves that Massachusetts drivers are either A: homicidal lunatics, B: So shockingly bad that they shouldn’t be allowed on the road, or C: Some combination of the two.

Drivers in Boston (3.1 years), Worcester (4.3 years) and Springfield (4.6 years) had the shortest average yearly gaps between accidents, according to Axios, which crunched Allstate claims data.

Boston, which puts all the dents in “accident,” finished ahead of Washington, D.C. (3.9 years) and Baltimore (4.2 years) for the shortest average gap between collisions.

The U.S. average, for those of you playing along at home, is 10.6 years. And the longest gap is in Brownsville, Texas, with an average of 14.2 years between pile-ups, according to Axios.

They Said It

“I mean, my interest in New York is — what do we need to do to beat the Yankees? Honestly, I did see that come through last night. I’m focused on what we can do here in Massachusetts.”

— Gov. Maura Healey, who normally has no problem wading into the fever swamp of Democratic politics, kept her own counsel during an appearance on GBH’s Boston Public Radio when she was asked about Zohran Mamdani’s win in last week’s mayoral primary in New York City (via State House News Service.).

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What Goes On

Vice President JD Vance touches down on Nantucket on July 22 for a high-dollar fundraiser put on by the Republican National Committee.

Admission runs $250,000 for the dinner’s host committee and $100,000 per couple. The location is only made available once you RSVP. News of the event was first broken by journalist Mark Halperin.

Vance last visited Nantucket in 2022 for an event that featured Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, of Florida, and former GOP Senate hopefuls Herschel Walker and Mehmet Oz. The latter is now a Trump administration official, the local Nantucket Current reported.

Turned Up to 11

Coldplay will bring their particular kind of stadium pop-rock to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough on July 15 (tickets and more info here). From 2011’s “Mylo Xyloto” LP, here’s “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall.”

Your Monday Long Read

Like many Californians, the threat of wildfire is a fact of life for Sinuhe Xavier. He’s prepared for it. He knows what to do when it comes. But nothing prepared him for the destructive force of the wildfires that tore through the Golden State earlier this year.

Writing for Huckberry’s Journal, Xavier writes about escaping the California wildfires with his son, admitting that “everything I knew about disaster preparedness was turned on its head.”

As ever, here’s the germane bit:

Orange and ominous, just east of us. Past the oak trees, I could see flames licking the horizon, beyond the church. The adrenaline hit hard, sharp. I ran back inside, told my son to pack. “Three things. Your favorite three things.” We were lucky—our bags were mostly packed from the trip. He scrambled around his room, grabbing his favorite Ushanka hat, his pocket knife, and his army surplus first aid kit.

The truck was parked across the street in a church lot, away from the trees. The wind fought me as I opened the door. If the truck had been facing the other way, the wind would’ve ripped it clean off. I drove it onto the lawn, loaded everything, grabbed our 17-year-old dog, and we left. No alerts. No sirens. No emergency presence. Just us, fleeing into the night.

Embers whipped past as we drove. The truck barreled through debris—palm fronds, garbage bins, branches scattered like wreckage from a silent war. I pulled over before hitting the freeway, I needed to have a plan of where I was going. Looking up the red flag warnings I knew that we would be out of the wind in Santa Barbara. I told my son the plan and he suggested we go to San Francisco, “It’s surrounded by water,” he said.

That’s it for today. As always, tips, comments and questions can be sent to jmicek@masslive.com. Have a good week, friends.