Josh Kraft, the son of billionaire Robert Kraft and president of the New England Patriots Basis, is predicted to formally kick off his marketing 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 problem incumbent Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.
“I care that Boston is heading within the incorrect path,” Kraft mentioned in a recorded video launched forward of the announcement. “And I care that metropolis corridor places politics and beliefs forward of impression.”
The transfer ends a yr of fervent gossip in Boston’s political area. The rumors began to swirl a bit over a yr in the past, when an organization related to Kraft purchased a condominium within the North Finish. Now, the 57-year-old scion of a paper and soccer fortune should introduce himself to voters.
Kraft grew up in Chestnut Hill, the third son of Robert and the late Myra Kraft. He attended Williams School, and mentioned he initially needed to be a lawyer.
“I all the time wish to say that I knew regulation college wasn’t for me after I obtained the bottom LSAT rating of any Williams School graduate in historical past,” he mentioned in a 2021 Fb Stay interview with the nonprofit Jewish Graduate Group.
Kraft as an alternative turned an outreach employee for the Boys & Ladies Membership. He mentioned within the video his first week on the job was the best schooling of his life.
“So lots of the issues that I’d solely examine within the newspapers, or solely heard about on the radio or tv, I noticed first-hand — Teen being pregnant. Below-education. Violence, home violence, substance abuse,” he mentioned. “However on the identical time I noticed the facility of a bunch of individuals, adults, that instilled in youngsters a way of neighborhood by making them really feel like they belonged, they usually mattered.”
Kraft took over the Boys & Ladies Membership in Chelsea and led the trouble to increase it from the basement of a public housing constructing to a brand new $11 million facility. In 2008, he turned president of the Boys & Ladies Golf equipment of Boston.
He led the group till 2020, when he left to take over his household’s Patriots Basis. The $45 million nonprofit provides to dozens of teams annually, from Massachusetts Common Hospital to the Perkins College for the Blind.
Kraft now lives within the North Finish together with his companion, Michelle Perez Vichot, in line with a marketing campaign spokesperson. He’s divorced and has two grownup daughters.
Scroll by means of Kraft’s Instagram web page, and also you’ll see he spends his nights attending neighborhood conferences, galas, and charity occasions round Boston.
Shiaka McIntosh runs the nonprofit Events from Above, a nonprofit that throws free birthday events for kids who’ve misplaced a dad or mum. She mentioned Kraft reached out to her and helped fund a back-to-school youngsters vogue present.
“To be seen by somebody who is definitely a Kraft, to me it’s like ‘thanks, as a result of I’m working so onerous and doing the brunt of the work that I really feel like individuals larger than me most likely needs to be doing,’ ” she mentioned. “However he makes certain he comes, he delivers, he positively tries to verify everybody’s OK.”
Shary Browne, founding father of Shea Butter Smoothies, mentioned she met Kraft over one in every of her signature drinks at her Jamaica Plain store. She mentioned Kraft first got here by for a neighborhood occasion and tried her strawberry and peanut butter smoothie, known as the “Large Papi.”
“He shouted us out, he let me know that it was probably the greatest smoothies he’d had to this point,” she mentioned. “And once more he confirmed that by backing it up, by continually coming right here after that to purchase the smoothie.”
Kraft’s many years of philanthropy and his recognizable household identify shall be key to his future marketing campaign, in line with UMass Boston political science professor Erin O’Brien.
“He has benefits undoubtedly that almost all candidates do not have by way of cash and realizing that final identify,” she mentioned. “Although I am guessing he needs the Patriots had a greater report proper now. That may assist him as nicely.”
To date, there’s little public details about the place Kraft stands politically. In a press release, a spokesperson for his marketing campaign mentioned Kraft will quickly “lay out his imaginative and prescient and concepts for turning Boston round.” In his recorded marketing campaign announcement, he mentioned his “primary” precedence is to decrease the price of housing.
His personal marketing campaign donations provide some clues to his private views. Kraft has given hundreds of {dollars} to native and nationwide Democrats, in line with information compiled by OpenSecrets, in addition to to a number of far-right Republicans.
Kraft gave $4,400 to Ohio Congressman Bob Latta in recent times, who’s advocated for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. In 2020 he gave $1,500 {dollars} to Georgia Congressman Buddy Carter, who opposes abortion with no exceptions.
Representatives for Kraft have mentioned his donations to conservative Republicans had been solely for his or her assist of Israel. In his 2021 interview with the Jewish Graduate Group, Kraft mentioned defending the state of Israel is necessary to him, and separates him from the progressive wing of the Democratic occasion.
Kraft mentioned he felt there was a rising wave of antisemitism in progressive politics.
“For those who’re ‘woke,’ you must be anti-Israel. For those who’re ‘woke,’ Jewish individuals in America are ‘white privilege,’ or have white privilege — I assume that’s the best way to say it,” he mentioned.
After which there’s the query of how he would possibly distance himself from the household enterprise if he had been elected. The Kraft sports activities, actual property, and personal fairness empire has a variety of pursuits within the metropolis, most not too long ago their effort to construct a Main League Soccer stadium in Everett, which requires negotiating a mitigation settlement with Boston.
Daniel Weiner is a specialist on cash in politics with NYU’s Brennan Heart for Justice. He mentioned Kraft would seemingly need to take motion to adjust to battle of curiosity legal guidelines as mayor.
“What that will normally require is a few effort to both separate from the household enterprise, and actually insulate himself from that, or recuse from the negotiations and different coverage selections that once more instantly impression his or his household’s backside line,” Weiner mentioned.
That is all certain to be fodder for Wu within the coming marketing campaign. O’Brien of UMass mentioned Kraft shouldn’t underestimate the mayor as an opponent.
“Simply because some learn her vitality as extra demure, she’s a formidable campaigner who has gone up in opposition to very proficient politicians, and each time has come out on the profitable facet,” O’Brien mentioned.
It’s onerous to unseat an incumbent in Massachusetts — particularly a mayor of Boston. However Wu does has vulnerabilities.
Enterprise teams and actual property builders complain that they’ve misplaced entry to metropolis corridor they loved with prior mayors. Wu fought for tax breaks for Boston residents that actual property pursuits finally killed. And he or she has angered some neighborhood teams, along with her plan to redevelop White Stadium in Franklin Park for an expert ladies’s soccer workforce and to shut streets within the North Finish to outside eating.
O’Brien mentioned Kraft has to this point approached the marketing campaign cautiously.
“That may be good politics, that may not. However now that you just’re operating you must say what you are for, and you do not need the opposition candidate to have the ability to outline you,” she mentioned.
