Josh Kraft to launch campaign for mayor of Boston

Josh Kraft, the son of billionaire Robert Kraft and president of the New England Patriots Foundation, is expected to officially kick off his campaign for mayor of Boston Tuesday morning in Dorchester.

Kraft, a Democrat, will look to leverage his high-profile presence in Boston’s charitable circles to challenge incumbent Mayor Michelle Wu.

"I care that Boston is heading in the wrong direction," Kraft said in a recorded video released ahead of the announcement. "And I care that City Hall puts politics and ideology ahead of impact."

The move ends a year of fervent gossip in Boston's political arena. The rumors started to swirl a little over a year ago, when a company associated with Kraft bought a condo in the North End. Now, the 57-year-old scion of a paper and football fortune must introduce himself to voters.

Kraft grew up in Chestnut Hill, the third son of Robert and the late Myra Kraft. He attended Williams College, and said he originally wanted to be a lawyer.

"I always like to say that I knew law school wasn’t for me when I got the lowest LSAT score of any Williams College graduate in history," he said in a 2021 Facebook Live interview with the nonprofit Jewish Graduate Organization.

Kraft instead became an outreach worker for the Boys & Girls Club. He said in the video his first week on the job was the greatest education of his life.

"So many of the things that I’d only read about in the newspapers, or only heard about on the radio or television, I saw first-hand. Teen pregnancy. Under-education. Violence, domestic violence, substance abuse," he said. "But at the same time I saw the power of a group of people, adults, that instilled in kids a sense of community by making them feel like they belonged, and they mattered."

Kraft took over the Boys & Girls Club in Chelsea and led the effort to expand it from the basement of a public housing building to a new $11 million facility. In 2008, he became president of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston.

He led the organization until 2020, when he left to take over his family's foundation. The $45 million nonprofit gives to dozens of groups each year, from Massachusetts General Hospital to the Perkins School for the Blind.

Kraft now lives in the North End with his partner, Michelle Perez Vichot, according to a campaign spokesperson. He is divorced and has two adult daughters.

Scroll through Kraft’s Instagram page, and you’ll see he spends his nights attending community meetings, galas and charity events around Boston.

Shiaka McIntosh runs the nonprofit Parties from Above, a nonprofit that throws free birthday parties for children who’ve lost a parent. She said Kraft reached out to her and helped fund a back-to-school kids fashion show.

"To be seen by someone who is actually a Kraft, to me it’s like 'thank you, because I’m working so hard and doing the brunt of the work that I feel like people bigger than me probably should be doing,' " she said. "But he makes sure he comes, he delivers, he definitely tries to make sure everyone’s OK."

Shary Browne, founder of Shea Butter Smoothies, said she met Kraft over one of her signature drinks at her Jamaica Plain shop. She said Kraft first came by for a community event and tried her strawberry and peanut butter smoothie, called the “Big Papi."

"He shouted us out, he let me know that it was one of the best smoothies he’d had thus far," she said. "And again he showed that by backing it up, by constantly coming here after that to buy the smoothie."

Kraft’s decades of philanthropy and his recognizable family name will be key to his future campaign, according to UMass Boston political science professor Erin O’Brien.

"He has advantages undoubtedly that most candidates don't have in terms of money and knowing that last name," she said. "Though I'm guessing he wishes the Patriots had a better record right now. That might help him as well."

So far, there’s little public information about where Kraft stands politically. In a statement, a spokesperson for his campaign said Kraft will soon “lay out his vision and ideas for turning Boston around.” In his recorded campaign announcement, he said his "number one" priority is to lower the cost of housing.

His own campaign donations offer some clues to his personal views. Kraft has given thousands of dollars to local and national Democrats, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets, as well as to several far-right Republicans.

Kraft gave $4,400 to Ohio Congressman Bob Latta in recent years, who’s advocated for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. In 2020 he gave $1,500 to Georgia Congressman Buddy Carter, who opposes abortion with no exceptions.

Representatives for Kraft have said his donations to conservative Republicans were solely for their support of Israel. In his 2021 interview with the Jewish Graduate Organization, Kraft said defending the state of Israel is important to him, and separates him from the progressive wing of the Democratic party.

Kraft said he felt there was a growing wave of antisemitism in progressive politics.

"If you’re 'woke,' you have to be anti-Israel. If you’re 'woke,' Jewish people in America are 'white privilege,' or have white privilege — I guess that’s the way to say it," he said.

And then there’s the question of how he might distance himself from the family business if he were elected. The Kraft sports, real estate, and private equity empire has a lot of interests in the city, most recently their effort to build a Major League Soccer stadium in Everett, which requires negotiating a mitigation agreement with Boston.

Daniel Weiner is a specialist on money in politics with NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice. He said Kraft would likely have to take action to comply with conflict of interest laws as mayor.

"What that would usually require is some effort to either separate from the family business, and really insulate himself from that, or recuse from the negotiations and other policy decisions that again directly impact his or his family’s bottom line," Weiner said.

This is all sure to be fodder for Wu in the coming campaign. O’Brien of UMass said Kraft should not underestimate the mayor as an opponent.

"Just because some read her energy as more demure, she's a formidable campaigner who has gone up against very talented politicians, and every time has come out on the winning side," O'Brien said.

It’s hard to unseat an incumbent in Massachusetts — especially a mayor of Boston. But Wu does has vulnerabilities.

Business groups and real estate developers complain that they’ve lost access to city hall they enjoyed with prior mayors. Wu fought for tax breaks for Boston residents that real estate interests ultimately killed. And she has angered some neighborhood groups, with her plan to redevelop White Stadium in Franklin Park for a professional women’s soccer team and to close streets in the North End to outdoor dining.

O’Brien said Kraft has so far approached the campaign cautiously.

"That might be smart politics, that might not. But now that you're running you have to say what you're for, and you don't want the opposition candidate to be able to define you," she said.