Welcome to the Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2025, Brew.
By: Lara Bonatesta
Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:
- Boston voters to decide Sept. 9 primary—76 years since an incumbent mayor lost
- Utah ordered to redraw congressional districts ahead of the 2026 elections
- Democratic and Republican state financial officers send letters to asset managers
Boston voters to decide Sept. 9 primary—76 years since an incumbent mayor lost
Four candidates are running in the nonpartisan primary election for mayor of Boston on Sept. 9. The top two finishers will advance to the general election on Nov. 4, 2025. Three candidates—incumbent Michelle Wu, Josh Kraft, and Robert Cappucci—wrote that they were Democrats on their organization statements filed with the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance. The fourth, Domingos DaRosa, did not provide a partisan affiliation.
Wu was first elected in 2021, when she defeated Annissa Essaibi George 64%-35.6%. In the 2021 primary, Wu and Essaibi George defeated six other candidates and received 33.4% and 22.5% of the vote, respectively. It has been 76 years since an incumbent mayor lost a bid for re-election in Boston. The last to do so was James Michael Curley in 1949.
Two candidates – Wu and Kraft – lead in media attention, endorsements, and campaign fundraising. Wu, a former member of the Boston City Council, has endorsements from U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D), U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D), and U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D), as well as various labor unions and political organizations. Kraft, head of Kraft Family Philanthropies and the son of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, has endorsements from the International Longshoremen’s Association, as well as several local building trade unions, including the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental, and Reinforcing Iron Workers Local 7 and Laborers Local 22.
Before holding public office, Wu interned for former Boston mayor Thomas Menino. She is running on her record. Her campaign website says, “Since taking office, she has invested more in making housing affordable than any other administration in Boston’s history. In her first full year as mayor, gun violence fell to the lowest level on record—and has continued to fall every year since. She promised a summer job to every BPS student who wanted one—and delivered, and has expanded Universal Pre-K to serve more children and families than ever before.”
Kraft was previously the CEO of the Boys & Girls Club in Boston and the President of the New England Patriots Foundation. His campaign website says, “I love this city, but I have serious concerns about its future and many issues need attention. Lack of access to housing that regular people can afford, which is forcing many people to leave the city. Boston Public Schools that are failing our kids and families. Poorly planned bike and bus lanes that are changing our neighborhood streets and creating gridlock all across the city. The humanitarian crisis and public safety concerns at Mass and Cass need to be addressed.”
On May 15, a coalition of the city’s Democratic Ward Committees hosted a candidate forum. Wu, Kraft, and DaRosa all participated. During the forum, candidates spoke about housing, public transportation, public safety, the city’s fiscal health, and the mayor’s role in responding to the Trump Administration’s policies. Click here to watch the forum.
While Wu and Kraft have both said they oppose the Trump Administration’s immigration policies, they differ on several other issues, including housing and transportation.
Wu said her administration has created more than 11,000 housing units, including 5,400 affordable units, with another 4,000 affordable units in progress, and implemented new affordability requirements. Kraft has said he would reverse the Wu administration requirements, which he says are blocking the construction of 26,000 housing units, increase the number of Boston residents who qualify for income-restricted housing units, and create an opt-in rent control plan that would include property tax breaks for participating landlords.
Wu has said she would prioritize reducing dependence on cars. Wu has highlighted her record on public transportation, including working with the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority to eliminate slow zones, as well as increasing ridership with fare-free bus lines, installing speed humps, and using technology to reduce congestion. Kraft has said he wouldn’t prioritize reducing dependence on cars. Instead, he says he would focus on fixing roads and sidewalks and temporarily pause bike lane construction to audit the efficiency of proposed bike lanes.
Another topic generating media attention that the candidates differ on is the renovation of Boston’s White Stadium.
Wu had led the city’s effort to renovate the stadium, calling it an investment “into Black and Brown communities, into our students, and into the Boston Public Schools.” Wu has also promoted an agreement between the city and Boston Legacy FC, a new professional women’s soccer team, to share use of the stadium. Kraft has criticized the stadium renovation as too expensive, saying he would cancel the contract with the soccer team and create a new plan for the stadium “at a fraction of the cost.”
Click here to see our full coverage of Boston’s mayoral primary.
Utah ordered to redraw congressional districts ahead of the 2026 elections
On Aug. 25, a federal judge ordered Utah to redraw its congressional map, making Utah one of 13 states where congressional district boundaries may change before the 2026 elections. Most notably, on Aug. 29, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed a new congressional map into law that is meant to gain five Republican U.S. House seats. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) set a Nov. 4, 2025, special election for a constitutional amendment to redraw the state’s congressional district boundaries through 2030.
In the Utah ruling, Judge Dianna M. Gibson wrote that the Utah Legislature violated voters’ right to reform their government when it overrode voters’ chosen redistricting rules.
Gibson gave the Legislature 30 days to produce a new map, setting a deadline of 5 p.m. on Sept. 24 or within 24 hours of enacting a new congressional map, whichever comes first.
If the Legislature does not produce a map that is compliant with the rules voters approved by Sept. 24 or if the plaintiffs argue that the Legislature’s proposed map is not compliant, the plaintiffs and third parties will be allowed to propose maps to the court. A hearing to discuss the resulting proposals will be scheduled between Oct. 9 and 14.
Gibson’s ruling comes more than three years after the Utah League of Women Voters and Mormon Women for Ethical Government first sued the Legislature on March 16, 2022.
How did this start?
In 2018, voters approved Utah Proposition 4, creating a seven-member redistricting commission to draft and recommend congressional and state legislative district maps to the Legislature. On March 18, 2020, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 200, repealing Proposition 4, creating a legislative redistricting committee that could recommend maps alongside the commission’s. It also removed the ballot initiative’s requirement that the Legislature explain its map decisions and removed the prohibition on partisan gerrymandering.
On Nov. 12, 2021, Gov. Spencer Cox (R) signed new congressional district boundaries that the Legislature passed. These maps differed from dozens of maps that the commission proposed after the 2020 census. Many of the commission’s maps suggested urban districts in the Salt Lake City area. The Legislature’s map gave all four of the state’s congressional districts a piece of Salt Lake City.
Republicans currently represent all four of Utah’s congressional districts.
In their lawsuit, the Utah League of Women Voters and Mormon Women for Ethical Government argued that the Legislature violated the state constitution when it repealed and replaced Proposition 4. The groups also argued that the congressional map was a partisan gerrymander.
In October 2022, the state district court originally dismissed the challenge against the Legislature for repealing Proposition 4, but the Utah Supreme Court ruled on July 11, 2024, that the Legislature’s override of Proposition 4 likely violated voters’ constitutional right to participate in government. The case returned to the state district court to determine whether the Legislature’s changes to the ballot initiative were “narrowly tailored to advance a compelling government interest.”
On Aug. 25, 2025, Gibson struck down the congressional map, writing, “The nature of the violation lies in the Legislature’s refusal to respect the people’s exercise of their constitutional lawmaking power and to honor the people’s right to reform their government.”
What does this mean for 2026?
Utah is one of 13 states that could have new congressional district boundaries by 2026. It is one of three states whose maps could change as a result of litigation, the others being Georgia and Louisiana.
A new Salt Lake City congressional district could mean the state’s new districts would produce three Republicans and one Democrat. This shift would come amid an ongoing effort in states across the country to draw more favorable districts for their parties ahead of the 2026 elections.
The map below shows the states with maps subject to change before the 2026 elections.
Republicans currently have a 219-212 majority in the U.S. House with four vacancies.
Click here to learn more about redistricting ahead of the 2026 elections.
Democratic and Republican state financial officers send letters to asset managers
On Aug. 15, 17 Democratic financial officers sent a letter to 18 of the largest asset management firms asking the firms to confirm their commitment to considering climate and other Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) factors in their long-term return models. Sixteen Democratic state officers and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander signed the letter.
The Democratic officials said they were responding to another letter that a group of Republican state financial officers and the State Financial Officers Foundation sent to several financial services companies on July 29. In the July letter, the Republican officials asked the firms to stop considering ESG factors in their investment practices, including corporate engagement, and to focus on “traditional fiduciary duty.”
The Republicans’ letter said, “Fiduciary duty has long been a critical safeguard that facilitated efficient capital allocation grounded in financial merit rather than political ideology. But that clarity is being diluted under the banner of so-called ‘long-term risk mitigation,’ where speculative assumptions about the future, like climate change catastrophe, are used to justify ideological conclusions today.”
The Democrats’ letter said that they believe the views in the Republican letter “misrepresent the true meaning of fiduciary duty and would require asset managers to take a passive approach to oversight while ignoring the nature of long-term value creation in modern capital markets. In contrast, we believe that fiduciary duty calls for active oversight, responsible governance, and the full exercise of ownership rights on behalf of the workers and retirees we serve.”
Ballotpedia covers ESG as part of our ongoing commitment to providing comprehensive, up-to-date political information beyond election coverage.
In case you’re not familiar with the term, ESG investing is an asset management approach that considers environmental, social, and corporate governance practices. It’s a type of stakeholder investing that says shareholder returns should not be the only goal. Stakeholder investing contrasts with traditional approaches that exclusively consider financial factors like balance sheets, income statements, and valuations to maximize risk-adjusted returns (also known as shareholder investing). To learn more about ESG and commonly considered investing factors, click here.
ESG investing is part of a broader public policy debate about whether government money managers should consider factors besides financial indicators or focus exclusively on maximizing risk-adjusted returns, especially in public pensions. The debate extends to policies governing the factors governments consider when awarding public contracts and policies prohibiting or requiring companies to consider non-financial factors when doing business. It also involves conversations about regulating specific ESG definitions, especially those used to rate or score companies.
Ballotpedia covered both letters in our Aug. 5 and Aug. 27 editions of Economy and Society, our weekly newsletter dedicated to the intersection of business and politics. Click here to sign up.To learn more about ESG, you can also check out Ballotpedia’s extensive resource, including reform proposals and legislative approaches, enacted legislation, arguments for and against it, and more. Plus, click here to use Ballotpedia’s ESG Legislation Tracker.