Care To Guess How Many Of The Safest Cities In The U.S. Have A Democratic Mayor?
Earlier this week, we reported that of the 20 most dangerous cities in the country – measured by their homicide rates in 2024 – only one had a Republican mayor. We were shocked by this finding.
So, we decided to look at the other end of the spectrum. What are the political affiliations of the mayors in the safest cities in the country?
Here’s what we found.
Many cities have nonpartisan elections, but of the 20 safest cities in the country, just five have mayors who are affiliated with or supported by Democrats.
Well, you might dismiss this as simply the result of these being relatively small cities. And it’s true that these are on the small side.
But small size doesn’t necessarily make a city safer. Among the cities with the highest homicide rates are St. Louis, which has a population of just over 277,000; the Richmond, Va., population is 231,000; Montgomery, Ala., has 193,000; and Shreveport, La., 175,000. Dayton, Ohio, with a population almost exactly the same as Orange, Calif., has a homicide rate of 29.7 per 100,000 residents.
On the other hand, San Diego, which has a population of 1.4 million, has a homicide rate of just 2.52 – well below the national average and almost a third of Los Angeles. San Diego has also seen voters put results over ideology – it’s had four Republican and five Democratic mayors since 1992.
Honolulu, with nearly a million residents, has a homicide rate of just 1.5. It, too, appears to value results over party ID. Since 1984, the city has had one Republican, two independents, and three Democratic mayors.
Understand, this is not meant to be a scientific study. Getting perfectly accurate homicide rates can be difficult, and not all sources agree on the exact number. There might be cities left out of this list (as there were in our previous editorial on dangerous cities). Nor are we trying to make any big pronouncements about causal relations. We are just reporting what we’ve found.
Even with those caveats, however, it’s hard to ignore the tremendous lopsidedness of these findings. Cities with the highest homicide rates are overwhelmingly run by Democrats. Those with the fewest are overwhelmingly not.
Anyone who cares about public safety should ask why that is, and start demanding results from their elected leaders, regardless of party affiliation.
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