BOSTON — Boston Mayor Michelle Wu took a victory lap Wednesday after trouncing Josh Kraft by a 48-point margin in the preliminary election, saying that her sweep of every ward was indicative of voters feeling the city is moving in the right direction.

Wu, flanked by her allies on the Boston City Council and state delegation, said outside City Hall that the preliminary results “resoundingly” showed “that in Boston, wins can’t be bought” — a shot at Kraft, who poured millions of his own cash into his campaign but mustered just 23% of the vote to her nearly 72%, according to unofficial election results.

“We saw across every neighborhood residents double down on wanting Boston to be a home for everyone,” Wu said at a campaign press conference. “Across every ward, voters affirmed that the Boston we’re building is the Boston that we want to build, that we’re moving in the right direction and need to keep going.”

Kraft, by securing second place in the four-way preliminary, will move on to the November general election as well, albeit as a significant underdog.

Wu won every ward and neighborhood, including a significant win in Kraft’s precinct in the North End, where he bought a $2.5 million condo in October 2023. Kraft had previously lived in Chestnut Hill before moving into the Boston condo, and launched his mayoral campaign in February.

The popular first-term progressive mayor also won in the areas where Kraft has focused much of his criticism of the Wu administration, near Mass and Cass where the city’s open-air drug market festers, and Franklin Park, where the city is moving forward with a controversial professional soccer stadium rehab of White Stadium.

Kraft, a son of the billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and longtime philanthropist, vowed Tuesday night to stay in the race rather than suspend his campaign, despite being handed a nearly 50-point defeat.

His campaign did not immediately respond to a Herald request for comment Wednesday.

Wu insisted that she wouldn’t become complacent after her resounding victory, saying that she would continue to pound the pavement until November and focus on problems that have been plaguing residents during her first term in office.

Those issues include a shortage of affordable housing in Boston and the open-air drug use, dealing and crime that festers at and around Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, an area commonly known as Mass and Cass.

“There’s a lot more work to do,” Wu said. “We know these challenges didn’t happen overnight. Many of the hardest things that our families and residents are dealing with are national challenges that cities everywhere are trying to grapple with.”

Still, Wu said her administration has made “historic progress” on housing, and “we know we’ve made progress on Mass and Cass.”

Wu, the city’s first Asian and elected female leader, has been bolstered in part by her defense of the city against attacks from the Trump administration. She chose to hammer away at the Trump administration again on Wednesday, while responding to criticism from Kraft that she’s been more focused on national than local issues.

“I have always only ever been interested in the work of our city,” Wu said. “I, as a person, naturally would love not to pay attention to the federal government. … But unfortunately we don’t have the luxury of calling Donald Trump a distraction.

“Most Bostonians do not have the privilege of thinking about the situation in this way, because we don’t have millions or billions of dollars to protect against impacts when jobs are threatened, when lives are threatened, when our very identities are targeted,” the mayor said.

At his election night party Tuesday night, Kraft had said, “Throughout this campaign, Mayor Wu has shown that she doesn’t want to talk about her record. She wants to talk about Donald Trump, and she wants to run against Donald Trump. She has tried to distract from her ineffectiveness on the issues that really matter to everyday Bostonians.”

Wu said Wednesday, however, that “what is happening in D.C. is impacting every resident of Boston in their day-to-day lives” and likened the preliminary results to a rebuke of the Trump administration.

The City of Boston has been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration over its sanctuary policies, namely the Trust Act, which limits local police cooperation with federal immigration authorities. The Department of Justice sued the city, Wu and the Boston police commissioner last week over its sanctuary laws.

“I think what we saw yesterday with the results, and certainly what I have heard across every neighborhood and in my conversations, particularly with communities who have been most targeted by this federal administration, is that we cannot let a wannabe authoritarian change how we take care of our residents in Boston,” Wu said.

“Whether it’s a billionaire in D.C. or those locally who are trying to push us backward, Boston is going to keep moving forward, and we’re going to do so proudly, loudly, and in partnership with all of our communities,” she added.

Kraft, whose father has had a friendly relationship with President Donald Trump in the past, has also attacked the president, saying at a union campaign event last month that Trump has “stoked hatred and division throughout our country.”

Kraft has set records for spending in a Boston preliminary election in his bid to become the first candidate to unseat a sitting Hub mayor since 1949. After his latest $3.5 million deposit last week, Kraft’s campaign spending sits at a cool $5.5 million.

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