Boston voters are finally getting an official look at the field of candidates — and a hint at what the Sept. 9 preliminary election will look like.
The deadline for filing signatures to qualify for Boston’s upcoming municipal election was Tuesday.
As of Thursday, only two mayoral candidates had qualified for the ballot: incumbent Mayor Michelle Wu and nonprofit leader Josh Kraft, the son of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
However, a total of seven mayoral candidates returned papers by the 5 p.m. deadline. The city’s Elections Department is still certifying the signatures on the other candidates’ nomination papers, so the list of qualified candidates may grow. A department staffer said Thursday that signature certification may take a couple of weeks.
If Wu and Kraft remain the only qualified candidates, there will be no preliminary election for mayor. The purpose of the preliminary vote is to narrow the field to the top two mayoral candidates.
As the field stands on Thursday, only Districts 5 and 7 will have preliminary elections in September to choose the top two City Council candidates. If additional candidates qualify for the ballot, that could extend to other districts or the whole city for at-large councilor seats.
The other potential mayoral candidates are Berry Homer Adams, Robert Cappucci, community activist Domingos DaRosa, City Hall staffer John Houton and Alex Winston.
Seven other candidates pulled papers to run for mayor, but did not file nomination petitions by the Tuesday deadline.
Candidates for mayor must collect 3,000 signatures from registered Boston voters to qualify for the ballot. Candidates for city councilor at-large must collect 1,500 and candidates for district councilor seats must collect 200 signatures from voters within their district.
Boston City Council candidates
The City Council has 13 members, nine of whom represent specific districts and four hold at-large seats.
Eight candidates have qualified to be listed on the ballot for one of the four at-large council seats, including incumbents Ruthzee Louijeune, the current council president, Julia Mejia, Erin Murphy and Henry Santana. Former District 3 Councilor Frank Baker, who served multiple terms before deciding not to run in 2023, also returned enough signatures to run for an at-large seat.
Yves Mary Jean, Marvin Dee Mathelier and Alexandra Valdez have also been certified.
Five other at-large candidates — Clifton Braithwaite, Jacob Jones, Rachel Nicole Miselman, Will Onuoha and Reggie Stewart — have returned nomination petitions but have yet to be certified.
As with the mayoral race, if no other at-large candidates make it to the ballot, there will be no preliminary election, as eight candidates will be listed on the November ballot. This would mean that there would be no citywide preliminary election, and only certain districts would need to vote in September.
Only one current city councilor is not running for reelection. Fourteen candidates, the most of any office, have returned petitions to replace District 7 Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson, who pleaded guilty last month to federal corruption charges and is expected to resign.
Of those 14, Said Abdirahman Abdikarim, Mavrick Afonso, Said Coach Ahmed, Miniard Culpepper, Samuel Hurtado, Natalie Juba-Sutherland, Jerome King and Roy Owens Sr. have officially qualified.
Wawa Bell, Tchad Akilah Cort, Joao Gomes DePina, James Grant, Shawn Dwayne Nelson and Robert Stanley had not been certified as of Thursday.
District 8 Councilor Sharon Durkan is the only candidate running unopposed. Several other councilors — District 2 Councilor Ed Flynn, District 3 Councilor John Fitzgerald, District 6 Councillor Ben Weber and District 9 Councilor Liz Breadon — have opponents who have returned nomination petitions, but have not yet been certified. All incumbent candidates have officially qualified for the ballot.
Flynn has two opponents, Charles Jeffrey Delaney and Brian Matthew Foley. Fitzgerald has two challengers, Lori Kauffman and Barry Lawton. Weber and Breadon have one opponent each, Steven Ray Berry and Pilar Ortiz, respectively.
In District 1, Councilor Gabriela Coletta Zapata is being challenged by Ricardo Rodriguez, who has been certified. Rasheed Laborde and Andretti McDuffie-Stanziani have not yet been certified.
As of Thursday, District 4 Councilor Brian Worrell has one qualified opponent, Juwan Khiry Skeens. Lucresia Aletha Adams, Helen Cameron, Michael Grant and Larry Jordan have all returned nomination papers.
Finally, in District 5, all three candidates have been certified for the ballot. In addition to incumbent Councilor Enrique Pepén, Sharon Hinston and Winston Pierre are running for the seat.
Nomination petition signatures must be certified by 5 p.m. on June 24th.
