In their recent article, Best- and Worst-Run Cities in America, WalletHub compared the operating efficiency of 148 of the largest U.S. cities to determine “how well city officials manage and spend public funds by comparing the quality of the services residents receive against the city’s total budget”. Among WalletHub’s 36 metrics of comparison were per Capita Budget and Financial Stability. I had a hunch that, on average, cities with Republican mayors would have smaller per capita budgets and greater financial stability than cities run by non-Republicans (mainly Democrats). And I wanted to check out if my hunch had any merit.
Luckily, Ballotpedia had just published Party affiliation of the mayors of the 100 largest cities, which included 15 Republican-run cities in the WalletHub comparison. This is what I found:
Hmmm. The mean of 148 is 74. Cities with Republican mayors are pretty close to the mean on both budget and financial stability. Possible explanations:
Other factors influence city budgets and finances,, e.g. resident demographics, prior mismanagement, strength of local opposition.
Some mayors have limited ability to influence the cities budgets or finances, e.g. weak-mayor system, short time in office, lack of mandate.
Party affiliation may be too crude a proxy for mayoral priorities. Republicans came in many flavors these days, from small government types to populists.
Sample size was just too small to detect significant patterns.
Links:
Best- & Worst-Run Cities in America (2025) Adam McCann/WalletHub. https://wallethub.com/edu/best-run-cities/22869
Party affiliation of the mayors of the 100 largest cities (2025) Ballotpedia. https://ballotpedia.org/Party_affiliation_of_the_mayors_of_the_100_largest_cities