Partisanship in city hall: trends and outlook for the 2019 elections
In many cities, elections for mayor, city council, and other municipal offices are officially nonpartisan. But in reality, many officeholders and candidates are in fact affiliated with one of the two major political parties.
Currently, the mayors of 62 of the nation's 100 largest cities are Democrats. There are 29 Republican mayors, four independents, four nonpartisan mayors, and one whose political affiliation is not known. In the 10 largest U.S. cities, eight mayors are Democrats, one is Republican, and one is independent.
Ballotpedia used one or more of the following methods to identify each officeholder's partisan affiliation:
- direct communication from the officeholder,
- current or previous candidacy for partisan office, or
- identification of partisan affiliation by multiple media outlets.
Thirty-one of the 100 largest cities are holding mayoral elections in 2019. In 20 of those cities, the incumbent was a Democrat prior to the election. Seven incumbents were Republicans, three were independent, and the affiliation of one mayor is unknown.
The mayor’s office is up for election this year in six of the 10 largest cities-Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Dallas. Five of those cities began the year with a Democratic mayor while San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg does not affiliate with any political party.
Democrats held the mayorship of 67 of the nation’s 100 largest cities at the beginning of 2016. They occupied 64 in 2017, 63 in 2018, and 61 at the beginning of 2019.
This year’s elections have already resulted in a partisan change in the mayor of the country’s 6th-largest city. Voters in Phoenix elected Kate Gallego (D) in a nonpartisan runoff election on March 12. Gallego succeeded Thelda Williams, a Republican, who became interim mayor in May 2018 after former Mayor Greg Stanton (D) resigned to run for the U.S. House.
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