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Four years ago, Michelle Wu ’07 quietly announced her candidacy for Mayor of Boston in a video. Promising ambitious affordable housing, transportation, and environmental reform, the then-City Councilor handedly defeated her opponents, becoming the first woman and person of color to be elected mayor of the city.

This March, Wu announced her reelection campaign to a crowd of more than a thousand supporters, in the same venue where she celebrated her victory four years ago. She appeared not only as a local leader but a national figure — standing firmly in her position against the Trump administration.

“The biggest single thing — to jump to today — is she’s standing up to that bully Trump,” Frederick P. Salvucci, former Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation who endorsed Wu in 2021, said. “That’s the most important issue in the country.”

Wu prominently emerged in the national spotlight after she defended the city against harsh questioning from House Republicans during her March testimony in Washington. But Wu remains focused on local issues — promising to continue building affordable housing, improving public transportation, and bolstering Boston’s public education system.

In interviews with The Crimson, former state officials, Boston residents, and former Wu staffers said they supported the Mayor’s first-term accomplishments, and were optimistic about her reelection bid.

During her first mayoral bid, fare-free public transportation was one of Wu’s signature campaign promises. Salvucci said he decided to endorse Wu in part because of this commitment, as well as her interest in improving the transportation throughout the city.

Though Wu has not completely eliminated fares, her administration made three bus routes completely free in 2022. Wu has committed to reforming transportation in the city through broader means — getting the City of Boston a seat on the MBTA Board, supporting a project to connect the Blue and Red lines, and expanding bike lanes in the city.

Salvucci praised Wu’s willingness to work with the MBTA to improve the T, which has required her to shut down portions of the network over the past four years.

“A lot of mayors would have demagogued the issue because there’s legitimate problems being caused by that strategy, but she supported the T,” he added. “She took the position: ‘We gotta get these tracks fixed.’”

“She’s moving the needle on really important strategic issues, and she’s done something very tough — she supported the MBTA,” Salvucci added.

But the bike lane network expansion, initially announced in September 2022, has not been Wu’s most popular mayoral move.

The expansion was set in motion aimed to “bring safer streets to every neighborhood,” and would work to build over 9 additional miles of bike lanes from Allston to Roslindale.

The expansion has been a contentious part of her term and her second mayoral race, with residents citing new issues with traffic and parking. Earlier this year, Wu announced a review of all street changes from her first term.

“Personally, I would say the bike lanes are a success,” Boston resident Kit A. Terrey ’27 said. “But I’ve also heard tons of other people say the bike lanes are the single worst thing that’s happened to Boston.”

Wu has committed to working with community members to evaluate her bike lane policies, and has recognized that the renovations are a work in progress.

Despite resident concerns about the bike lanes, Salvucci said he is still planning to endorse Wu for her reelection bid.

“I think she’s really been a very, very good mayor for public transportation,” he said.

Wu has also taken initiative to help residents as the nation faces rising housing prices. In the first three years of her administration, more affordable housing was built than in any three-year period since 1998. From 2022 to 2024, more than 5,000 income-restricted units were completed or were in construction.

Mary Lou Akai-Ferguson, who served as Wu’s campaign manager in 2020 and interim chief of staff for the start of Wu’s term, praised the mayor’s expansion of affordable housing.

“I think she’s done a really good job with housing,” Akai-Ferguson said. “She has done a really fantastic job of sticking to her guns on the changes that need to be made.”

Wu also committed to improving Boston Public Schools during her first mayoral campaign, as well as promising to expand universal pre-kindergarten. She did just that in 2022, investing $20 million to increase seats in Boston’s universal Pre-K program.

In 2024, the Wu administration released their “master plan” for Boston school facilities, which proposed the closure or merging of more than a dozen under-enrolled schools — including Mary Lyon High School in Allston. Paul Reville, professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and former Massachusetts Secretary of Education, said the administration has made progress despite initial “setbacks”.

“She’s conceived of a long term building and school closing plan here hasn’t been easy,” Reville, who endorsed Wu in 2021, said. “They’ve learned from the setbacks, and they were able to engineer a school closing and consolidation program that that passed the school committee recently and now is going to move forward”

Reville said Wu has been a “strong education mayor,” noting improvements in attendance and increased enrollment across Boston schools.

“She’s a Boston Public School parent herself, so there’s no question she’s deeply committed to young people in our community and doing everything she can to see that they’re well educated, to see that they’re safe, to see that we pay attention to their well being,” he said.

As Wu faces competition from philanthropist Joshua Kraft and community activists Kerry Augustin and Domingos DaRosa, both Reville and Salvucci praised Wu for her presence on the national stage.

“She and the governor have stood strong,” Reville said. “Massachusetts is going to maintain its values.”

“She could have a terrible transportation policy, and I’d be supporting her because of what she’s doing in standing up to Trump,” Salvucci said.

But Akai-Ferguson said that Wu has her eyes set on the City of Boston, and will not be leaving her hometown anytime soon.

“People in Boston and I have always known that she rides for what’s right, and she’ll fight for it,” Akai-Ferguson said. “She’s never looked for the national spotlight. She’s not a climber. Her passion is the city of Boston.”

—Staff writer Megan L. Blonigen can be reached at megan.blonigen@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @MeganBlonigen.

—Staff writer Frances Y. Yong can be reached at frances.yong@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @frances_yong_.