Democrat Michelle Wu, the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, will become the first woman and the first person of color to be Boston’s mayor.
Wu, a City Councilor, bested a fellow Democrat, Annissa Essaibi George, in a Tuesday run-off to fill the office vacated by Marty Walsh, who joined the Biden administration earlier this year.
Wu “broke a 199-year streak of white, male elected city leaders,” according to NPR.
“We are ready to meet this moment. We are ready to become a Boston for everyone,” Wu told supporters on Tuesday night.
The Boston Globe reports:
Her victory is a triumph of a new Boston over the establishment, a powerful endorsement of the often irreverent style she has brought to a staid city government. Courting a city attached to its traditions, she presented an unapologetic, novel agenda that has already needled many longtime leaders: free public transportation, an entirely new approach to downtown development, rent control, and a municipal-level Green New Deal.
Wu was born in Chicago but moved to Boston to attend Harvard and Harvard Law School, where she become a protege of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, then a professor.
“I came to this city as a homesick college kid,” Wu said in her victory speech. “But as soon as I stepped foot on the red line to Chinatown, tea token in hand, I knew I was home. Thank you, Boston.”
The Washington Post explains:
Many community leaders see Boston’s politics as finally catching up with its demographics. Non-Hispanic White residents now make up fewer than 50 percent of its population, according to the 2020 Census, and the shares of Asian and Latino residents have continued to grow.
“In a nod to the diversity of the city, she then repeated that message — everything is possible — in Spanish, French, and Mandarin,” adds The Globe.
Wu will be sworn in on November 16th. At 36 years-old, she will be the youngest Boston mayor in a century.