I & I Editorial BoardAll the attention being thrown at New York’s mayoral primary race, won by socialist Zohran Mamdani, raises broader questions that deserve answers. Why do voters keep electing Democrats responsible for so much urban decline and decay? What will break the left’s stranglehold on our once great cities? Is the situation simply hopeless?
Of the nation’s largest 20 cities, only two have Republican mayors – Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas. Republicans hold the mayorships of just 25 of the 100 largest cities. And that number is down from 30 in 2020.
More mysterious is the paradox that, despite the fact that blame for empty stores, rising crime, and the exodus of people rests squarely on the shoulders of Democrats in most of these cities, voters rarely hand control over to Republicans.
Look at the history of the 10 largest cities and despair.
Los Angeles has had one Republican mayor since 1961. New York has had one and a half since 1969 (Michael Bloomberg had been a lifelong Democrat, but ran as a Republican in 2001 and 2005, and then left the GOP midway through his second term).
Chicago has been electing Democratic mayors since 1931, and Houston since 1982.
Phoenix has elected Democrats for 20 years (a Republican was twice appointed as an interim mayor).
In Philadelphia, the last time a Republican was mayor was in 1948, and it’s been 24 years since San Antonio voters picked a GOP candidate for the city’s top office.
The other three of the top 10 cities – Dallas, San Diego, and Jacksonville – have been notable exceptions, with each having a fair share of mayors from both political parties.
Not only do voters in the nation’s largest cities keep electing Democrats, many of the ones winning elections today are more radical than their predecessors. Seven cities are today run by socialist mayors. Ten years ago, there was one.
Three years ago, Los Angeles, described by NBC News as suffering “long-simmering frustrations with issues like homelessness and crime” – not to mention the exodus of hundreds of thousands of residents – under Democratic leadership, had the chance to elect a wealthy real-estate developer, Rick Caruso, who promised to clean up the place.
Instead, voters overwhelmingly elected Castro-loving communist and former “community organizer” Karen Bass, who’s proved more incompetent than her predecessor, with the city now $1 billion in the red and entire neighborhoods burned to the ground in wildfires while she was vacationing in Ghana.
After the fires, Caruso said, correctly, that “We have terrible leadership resulting in billions of dollars in damage because [Bass] wasn’t here and didn’t know what she was doing.”
But Bass will still probably win reelection next year.
New Yorkers, after suffering eight years of Bill de Blasio and now the wildly unpopular, scandal-ridden Eric Adams, appear poised to elect a Marxist, who is guaranteed to make everything in New York worse.
What’s truly bizarre is that voters keep putting Democrats in charge even as their friends and neighbors vote with their feet to leave these Democratic hellholes.
In just the past four years, the one-party cities of Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago have seen their combined populations shrink by more than 370,000.
People are fleeing other Democratic cities such as San Francisco, Boston, Portland, Baltimore, Milwaukee (which hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1906, but has had three socialist mayors), Albuquerque, Minneapolis, and Cleveland (which has had only two Republican mayors since 1941).
Leftists keep yapping about how they want more people to live in densely populated areas, but then do everything they can to drive people away.
So, what is it about cities? Is there something in human nature that causes people to get more liberal – or dumber, depending on your perspective – the more densely packed together they are? Is this just a fact of life? And who cares, anyway? If Democrats want to ruin these cities and people keep voting them into office, we should just say good riddance, right?
But think about it: We are all paying the costs of urban blight and decay that Democrats have brought forth. We pay them in the form of larger housing subsidy costs, bigger welfare costs, deeper economic stagnation, and more widespread cultural rot.
Imagine what the nation would be like if our urban centers were thriving, prosperous, peaceful, innovative, family-friendly, affordable, and nice places to live. Where businesses were able to flourish, and schools were models of excellence. Imagine the hole this would blow in the Democrats’ effort to win national elections simply by appealing to urban leftists.
There’s no reason to believe that our major cities can’t be rescued. But that will never happen if the right gives up trying.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
I’ve wondered this myself as urban centers are over run by voters that keep terrible politicians and their policies into power. Chicago is a great example of this but there are many more…
Republicans have largely given up on these cities. The people who have left them are the people who would consider voting for something different, but got tired of waiting. Perhaps this is an opportunity for Elon Musk’s new party to focus on an alternative to Dems in our major cities.
There’s also the issue of election integrity – is it even possible for a non-Democrat to win in Chicago or Philadelphia no matter how popular the candidate? National election reform won’t even help since 25 states (including New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, forbid scheduling mayoral elections to coincide with national races).
* https://www.sightline.org/2024/06/10/when-do-cities-hold-elections/
The key reason why states hold mayoral and other local elections in odd-numbered years is that any election held in an even-numbered year would fall under the authority of Congress to regulate the election of its own members, in accord with the Elections Clause of the United States Constitution in Article I, Section 4:
“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”
Any ballot in an even-numbered year has candidates for a Representative on it, and therefore is under the ultimate control of Congress.
Any national effort to reform elections by passing laws in Congress won’t effect odd-year local and state elections, unless local and state laws require such elections to be held in even-numbered years. This is how quirky laws such as ‘ranked choice ballots’ can be used to erode our democracy and allow extremists such as Mamdani to win low-turnout elections with no clear winner in the ‘first round’. “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature”, but only if you are an extreme leftist.
The vast majority of city dwellers are poor and rely on government assistance for EVERYTHING. From picking up their garbage, paying their rent, to feeding them. The Democrats supply this hence they will never be voted out. Take away the freebies and Dems wouldn’t win another election.
There will be no change until the community development block grants go away. Democrats farm this money out to activists in the community–effectively buying loyalty and votes. Cancel the block grants to cities; let them stand on their own. See what happens when the river of cash goes away. But that’s not the Washington DC way.
How about this article on time to bring back city states?: https://teresaneumann.substack.com/p/time-for-city-states-in-america-riots
To save our cities, states and our country…
Raise the voting age… to have better and wiser government, locally, in the states and in DC.
Can anyone deny that he or she matured into a wiser and more informed voter in their later 20’s and even in their 30’s?
I became a much more informed, interested and a wiser voter around 35 when I had children, was paying school taxes, could not find a safe and credible public school, lived in a downtown with rampant crime and backward public polices enacted by our elected officials who encouraged crime and encouraged crummy schools, too.
Voting age was 21 for decades until a misdirected argument comparing military eligibility to the voting age, lowered the voting age to 18! What 18 year old knows his behind end from a hole in the ground?
Raise the age to 21, at the least; 25 is better and 35 would be golden, if we want to protect and strengthen our cities, states and our country. 18 is irresponsible!
let them rot. maybe the future of the usa will be in smaller cities and towns – and decentralized cooperation via internet.
movies don’t have to be made in hollywood. cars don’t need to be made in detroit.
In Washington state the communists… pardon me, democrats control the machine, all mail in voting -thanks Ms Wyman- is uniquely susceptible to institutional fraud. There hasn’t been a statewide elected office occupied by a Republican since. But why? Why?
Wait.
The right wing is the issue? Because we are tiredness loud and useless city folks as always ruining their stuff and then telljngbus how important tea t they must be, and for us to pay for it
Over.
Folks we dont care if these cities fail. Clintonites didn’t care when many more towns catered with nafta.
But we don’t need cities. Wall Street can today function anywhere. D rathet go to the Trump Ventwr…umm Kennedy Center…than broadway. Hollywood no longer resides in California. We can get amarosa rolls…the true secret…anywhere outside of Philly and make xheeaesteaks. Chicago is and has been a joke. Houston? Smells and gillys is long gone.
The future is in the suburbs and even further out. Onky the weak need Uber and 24/7 bagels…which we make better and healthier in the country.
Rome as a concept did not fall. The city job Rome did. But long before the wealthy and the smart left for Britain and Europe which transformed these rather barbaric regions into the floor for the renesaaince.
Nobody cares if NYC falls.
Except the rats, street workers, criminals and other assorted losees like middle class college educated white libs.
Buhhh buy
Never. Why? Because Dem urban voter fraud controls political outcomes.
And let’s not overlook the wealthy Dems who put those odd political hacks in office. Mayor Bass in LA used to be well supported by Palisades and Malibu citizens. Mostly Leftist. The fires might help change some of that naivety. We will see.