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New Balance chair donates $1 million to super PAC supporting Josh Kraft
Billionaire Jim Davis also spent big in efforts to defeat Mayor Michelle Wu during her 2021 campaign.
A super PAC supporting mayoral candidate Josh Kraft received a $1 million donation recently from Jim Davis, the billionaire chairman of New Balance.
The contribution was first reported by Commonwealth Beacon, and became public in a campaign finance report published last Friday. Davis sent the money to the Your City, Your Future super PAC, which is supporting Kraft’s efforts to unseat Mayor Michelle Wu.
A spokesperson from the Kraft campaign declined to comment. A spokesperson from the Wu campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Kraft, the son of billionaire Patriots owner Robert Kraft, is a longtime philanthropist who has built connections with some of Boston’s most powerful movers and shakers. But unseating an incumbent mayor in Boston is exceedingly rare, and Wu has been riding a streak of goodwill after making national headlines for standing up for Boston’s immigration policies against President Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers. Even before she testified before Congress, polling showed Wu to be leading Kraft.
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Part of Wu’s strategy thus far has been to paint Kraft as a wealthy, entitled outsider. The donation from Davis, therefore, could play into Wu’s hands. Still, Wu remains vulnerable on a number of hot-button issues, from Mass. and Cass to bike lanes and the ongoing development of White Stadium.
The contribution should not be particularly surprising for those that follow Boston’s political scene. Davis is a longtime Republican donor who also spent big to support Annissa Essaibi George’s campaign against Wu in 2021.
Davis has a net worth of about $6.3 billion and was recently named as one of the top-20 most influential Bostonians by Boston Magazine.
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Davis’s donation is the largest in the recent finance report, but the super PAC backing Kraft also received $150,000 from John Calnan, chief executive of construction company J. Calnan and Associates, and $100,000 from Robert Hale, chief executive of Granite TeleCommunications.
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