Yesterday was Boston’s preliminary election day, and after months of campaign flyers and community forums, the votes are finally in. Boston voters narrowed down the candidates for mayoral seats, for city council members in districts 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7 and for city councilors-at-large. Here’s who you’ll be able to vote for this November:  

While voter turnout across the city was expectedly low, as is common with municipal elections, voting advocates and the voters who did turn out said this election was critical. 

“This election is just so important because we have an incumbent mayor in the election, and with the clashing of the city of Boston and the federal government regarding sanctuary policies, and really just anything and everything associated with immigration, it’s a very heated and tense political environment,” said Savanna Ruzzano of Northeastern Votes, a coalition of Northeastern University students, staff, and faculty working to promote voter education, registration and turnout. 

While municipal elections generally don’t bring in as many votes as state and national elections, they carry a lot of weight in the community, having a direct and immediate local impact.

“The stakes are much higher. You’re voting on a much smaller scale, so your vote carries a lot more weight,” said Ruzzano.

Reporters from The Scope spoke with residents around the city—in Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Dorchester, Fenway, Roxbury and West Roxbury—about what they think should be the priorities for their city elected officials.

Residents mentioned a handful of top concerns for the next mayor—the state of the public schools and transportation, the cost of housing and standing up to President Donald Trump.

Heading into the polls Tuesday, 24-year-old paralegal Paige Edwards’ biggest concern was preserving her own Beacon Hill neighborhood. She is a supporter of Mayor Michelle Wu, who she sees as more confident and outspoken than candidate Josh Kraft. 

She is concerned that Kraft is not authentic about the Democratic values he claims to represent. Kraft has pledged to fight the Trump administration while lowering housing prices, which he asserts have risen under Wu. 

“Michelle Wu, obviously, she’s not perfect, but I think she’s done a pretty good job for the city,” Edwards said. “My personal values align closely with what she’s doing, and she has a lot more involvement in the city. Her kids are in the public schools. She takes public transportation.” 

Over near Symphony Hall, at the Symphony Plaza East polling station in Ward 4, 68-year-old retiree Carey Erdman walked home with his husband.

He said the overall political climate feels “horrible” and that he has often found himself having to tune it out. Still, he expressed gratitude for sharing his community with people that want to take care of each other and build each other up rather than tear each other down. 

“Most of the candidates that are on our ballots, at least, are trying to do that,” Erdman said. 

Kyara A-H (who declined to share her full last name), 32, voted at Marcus Garvey Gardens in Roxbury’s City Council District 7. One metric she used to narrow down the 11 candidates in her district was “the person’s relationship to the community.”

“How often, prior to this race…did I see you? I work in Nubian Square, and so there are certain people that were on the ballot that I either saw them a lot, or people representing them,” she said. 

Abukar Ozman, a Roxbury resident, said he was inspired by the work City Council District 7 candidate Said “Coach” Ahmed has accomplished, so he came out to show his support. “I am excited, it is my second time volunteering, my first one was in 2018,” he said.

Amidst crowds of tourists in Back Bay, Boston residents entered the Old South Church polling station in Ward 5. 

26-year-old Arielle Greenspan, a social work intern and Northeastern University alum, came out to vote in hopes of “promoting a positive future.” Greenspan identified transportation as an especially important issue because she uses the T almost every day. 

At the Boston Public Library in Copley Square, Norron Lee, an 84-year-old Fenway retiree, walked out of the polling place excited to vote in another election. Lee expressed his stance on affordable housing in Boston, criticizing the limited space there is for further housing developments. He believes there is a “lack of activity on true affordable housing.” 

Mayoral candidate Kraft walked in front of the Boston Public Library in a final push to campaign during the primary. Kraft expressed his interest in supporting all Boston residents if elected mayor.

“We will be resident-focused, and residents will always be the priority because the mayor works for the residents,” Kraft said. “I will put residents first in every decision we do. It doesn’t mean we’ll promise everything, but they’ll always be first.” 

Over on Mission Hill, 32-year-old Hannah Lamarre, an administrative coordinator with Harvard-MIT’s Health Sciences and Technology Program, left the polling center with her partner, Kit von Campe, after a long afternoon assisting local voters. 

“I wanted to get more involved in the community and fair elections,” Lamarre said. “We can’t really be sure how much longer we’ll have them, so I wanted to do my part.” 

For Lamarre and von Campe, participating in this election isn’t just about public transit, affordable housing or civic duty, it’s about safeguarding the city’s most vulnerable communities.  

“It’s most important that we protect our immigrant neighbors, stand up to ICE and do everything we can to throw a wrench in what they’re trying to do,” said von Campe, a faculty coordinator at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. 

“We need to maintain Boston’s standing as a sanctuary city where we welcome everyone,” Lamarre added, explaining that the couple has been distributing anti-ICE flyers in Harvard bathrooms and leaving cards that detail in multiple languages how to respond if approached by ICE on the street. The way that she and von Campe voted in this election is an extension of that commitment. 

In West Roxbury, a handful of voters trickled in and out of the polling station at St. George Orthodox Church. 

93-year-old retiree Dolores Burton said the priorities for whoever is elected mayor should be to keep the city safe and “to keep the roads in good shape.”

Her caretaker from Dorchester, Gissell Melo, who planned to vote in the afternoon, said the elected mayor must maintain the beliefs they ran on. The 42-year-old Melo said schools require more focus, and, while the charter schools are good, “the public schools are slowly going down the drain. There are too many students per teacher.” 

Melo also commented that she would like to see rent control throughout the city. “Rents have skyrocketed,” she said.

In the parking lot at St. George’s, Nick and Lelia Gatzos were walking in to vote. The married couple, both retired and living in West Roxbury, had questions about the mayoral candidates. The 76-year-old Nick said Kraft has criticized Wu for being willing to spend $100 million on restoring White Stadium. Granted, the Northeastern University chemistry graduate said, that would feed a lot of homeless people. But Kraft has not talked about what he would do and if that’s his only issue, then Wu “has done a half decent job,” he said.

77-year-old Leila noted that in the social media groups she follows, people have been critical of the “road diet” for Centre Street in West Roxbury, which reduced traffic lanes and opened bike lanes. But she didn’t blame Wu for that, noting bike lanes have become increasingly common in other cities as well.

Leila, a Greek immigrant like her husband, was also happy that Wu has “stood up to [President] Trump’s garbage. All that stuff he is doing. We have a nice city and we don’t need that.”

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This story was reported and written by Scope editor Marigo Farr and Northeastern University students Camryn Cunningham, Emma Capshaw, Ali Caudle, Leona Gagalac, Andrea Pauti Gani, Kiley Giordano, Lily Hamson, Jillian Iredale, Cassandra Joyce, Sadie Kan, Andrew Longo, Gabriella Mbaoua, Margot Murphy, Daphne Morales, Inaaya Omer, and Devyn Rudnick.