Wu’s Beacon Hill power play could come with a price - The Boston Globe
Get in the game. Sign up for The Scrum here. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has bet on backing unlikely candidates in local elections, and, so far, her wagers have paid off nicely. But the state Senate race she waded into Wednesday may be her biggest gamble yet — one that’ll test the bounds of her influence in the city, and, win or lose, could have damaging side effects on Beacon Hill. Wu escalated her long-running feud with South Boston Senator Nick Collins, endorsing child care advocate Latoya Gayle in her primary bid to unseat him. Wu and Collins’ long-running beef hit its peak late last year, after the conservative Democrat (again) blocked her attempts to get property tax legislation passed on Beacon Hill. (You can catch up on the drawn-out drama here, here, here, and here.) The endorsement wasn’t exactly a surprise. Those in Wu’s political orbit have for months been quietly supporting Gayle, a first-time candidate who lives in Dorchester and whose campaign manager, Maccon Bonner, served in Wu’s administration before joining the campaign. But in putting her name — and fiery criticisms of the entire Senate — behind the effort to oust Collins, the mayor officially opened a new front in her battle with the upper chamber. It was a moment she seemed to revel in. “This is going to be a fun election cycle,” she said. Gayle faces an otherwise uphill battle. Collins is well-known in the district, and has a significant cash advantage. He had $92,000 in his campaign account at the end of last month to Gayle’s $15,500. Shortly after Wu’s endorsement, his campaign began circulating an internal poll that showed that 82 percent of the roughly 800 people surveyed said they would vote for him in the primary, compared to 10 percent for Gayle. (Collins’ campaign didn’t respond to questions about details of the poll, including its margin of error or how it was conducted). It’s not the first time Wu has backed apparent underdogs and won. She helped install several allies on the City Council in 2023, and aided political unknown Allison Cartwright in her defeat of sitting City Councilor Erin Murphy in a 2024 race for the oft-ignored role of clerk Suffolk County Supreme Judicial Court. Still, this one will test her clout in some of the less-friendly areas of the city toward her. Seven of the nine precincts where her opponent, Josh Kraft, outperformed her in last year’s preliminary election were in South Boston. “Mayor Wu is arguably the most influential figure in Boston politics right now, and this is about whether that popularity translates into influence in a state legislative race,” said Kate Norton, a political consultant who previously worked for former mayor, Martin J. Walsh. “By weighing in against Collins, she’s putting her political capital on the line. He’s a well-established incumbent who has really strong support in the neighborhood.” Collins isn’t the only one caught in the mayor’s crosshairs. State Senator Will Brownsberger, the other member of the Senate’s Boston delegation who spoke out publicly against her property tax shift bill, is facing a challenge from former Wu aide, Daniel Lander. Though Wu has yet to weigh in directly on that race, Lander’s campaign finance reports are peppered with donations from those in the Wu-inverse. Senate President Karen Spilka declined to address the Gayle endorsement at an unrelated event Wednesday. But she’s been quietly helping Collins and Brownsberger, one of her top deputies, by making calls to union leaders to rally their support for them, according to two people with knowledge of the calls. Taken together, the races have the feel of a revenge tour, a risky game for a mayor who needs buy-in from both chambers of the state Legislature if she wants to get some of her biggest priorities passed. Then again, many of those priorities already seem stuck in neutral. “The question really is,” Norton said, “what does she have to lose?” SURVEY SAYS: It’s anyone’s game in the Democratic primary for Massachusetts’ Sixth Congressional District — but state Representative Tram Nguyen may have a slight edge in the six-person field, at least according to a poll her campaign commissioned. The poll of 400 likely Democratic primary voters in the North Shore-anchored district found Nguyen, of Andover, leading with 28 percent of support from those surveyed. Dan Koh, a former White House aide, notched the second most support at 18 percent, while the rest of the field all fell under 10 percent. The poll, conducted between May 26-27, had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.89 percentage points, according to a memo from the campaign. It’s the second internal poll that has Nguyen, the only current elected official in the race, leading. A March survey that John Beccia’s campaign released had Nguyen at 13 percent to 10 percent apiece for Beccia and Koh, though that was within the survey’s margin of error of plus or minus roughly 5 percentage points. Another internal poll software engineer Bethany Andres-Beck’s campaign released last month had the software engineer leading the field, but only after voters read “candidate bios” that read like campaign lit for some (Andres-Beck) and oppo hits for others (Koh). Nguyen’s poll, conducted by Workbench Strategy (which has done work for Zohran Mamdani’s New York mayoral campaign) also included results after voters read “all positive biographical statements” about the candidates. But unlike Andres-Beck’s survey, it included the results without them. BALLOT BUSTERS: Officials with the Massachusetts Democratic party are looking to knock two Republican candidates for statewide office off the ballot after they submitted signatures flagged by local clerks over possible forgery concerns to the Secretary of State’s office this week. Adam Roof, the state Democratic Party’s executive director, filed complaints with the State Ballot Law Commission on Wednesday, alleging that “numerous” certified signatures both Republican attorney general hopeful Michael Walsh and lieutenant governor candidate Anne Manning Martin handed in by Tuesday’s deadline had been “fraudulently obtained.” Neither candidate has much wiggle room should any of their signatures get discounted: Both submitted around 10,600 signatures — just over the 10,000 threshold to qualify for the September ballot — and each had more than 1,000 flagged by clerks. The ramifications could go beyond just the ballot: Knowingly submitting fake signatures is against the law. POUR DECISIONS: Add Spilka, the Senate’s top Democrat, to the list of pols supporting a proposal to keep drinks flowing until 3 a.m. this summer as the state gets ready to host a handful of World Cup games. In fact, Spilka’s office hinted that the Senate may want to let the liquor flow even more freely (read: happy hour). The Ashland Democrat “supports giving cities and towns the option to shift last call to 3 a.m. this summer, and more widely giving local officials the flexibility to loosen up our antiquated alcohol consumption laws,” a Spilka spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday. It’s possible her chamber could soon get something to consider. House lawmakers on a legislative committee rewrote and unanimously advanced a narrowed version of the legislation on Wednesday that would allow bars, with local approval, to push last call to 3 a.m., starting Monday and lasting until July 31. The House and the Senate are both holding formal sessions on Thursday. Both Wu and Governor Maura Healey say they back the idea. Actual bartenders, not so much. RECORDS SCRATCH: Transparency fight escalates as House votes to limit its exposure to audit, public records requests by Chris Lisinski, CommonWealth Beacon: Massachusetts House leaders are attempting to chart a path forward on a pair of overlapping transparency fights. In the process, they seem to have set off an even greater conflagration. “This is, to me, kind of like a shit sandwich with extra pickles,” said House Minority Leader Brad Jones. FUN READ: Carrie Nation endures as Beacon Hill’s ‘place to go’ by Ella Adams, State House News Service. MONEY MATTERS: City Council delays vote on Wu’s $4.9 billion budget proposal, approves using $70 million of reserves to plug budget gaps by Niki Griswold, The Boston Globe: The Boston City Council voted Wednesday to postpone a planned vote on the mayor’s budget proposal until next week, delaying action on a spending plan that has divided the council and drawn intense pushback from community groups. RENTAL ASSISTANCE: Mayor Wu endorses compromise rent control proposal, saying it would ‘avoid a messy ballot initiative’ by Andrew Brinker, The Boston Globe: Wu on Wednesday threw her support behind a compromise rent control proposal that tenant advocates and a group of high-powered real estate developers unveiled earlier this week in a bid to avoid a brutal ballot fight this fall. Massachusetts’ labor force at risk as immigration cuts threaten major worker shortfall by Emily Scaff, Boston Business Journal. 3 years ago, Worcester tried a new model for crisis response. What happened? by Henry Schwan, Worcester Telegram & Gazette. There are a lot of dead fish in the Charles. Don’t worry, but also — don’t touch them by Hannah Reale, GBH News. Hadley voters approve a $1.5M tax override in nail-biter election by Scott Merzbach, Daily Hampshire Gazette. Thanks for reading The Scrum. This newsletter was edited by Matt Stout and produced by Diamond Naga Siu. Have a question for the team? Email us at thescrum@globe.com. Delivered Monday through Friday. Kelly Garrity can be reached at kelly.garrity@globe.com.