After a Decades-Long Retreat, These Republican Mayors Are Bringing the GOP Back to America’s Cities

After a decades-long retreat from the nation’s urban areas, Republicans now hold only about a quarter of the mayorships in the country’s 100 biggest cities.

Dallas mayor Eric Johnson believes that’s a problem, not only for the Republican Party, but for residents of Democratic-led cities who value public safety and fiscal restraint over social agitation, and who want to live in communities that are friendly to business.

That’s why last fall, after Johnson made waves for switching his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican, he launched the Republican Mayors Association, or the RMA, a political organization aimed at helping to recruit and elect conservative executives in towns, villages, and cities big and small across the country.

“Our party is running out of places to get votes if it’s just going to ignore the cities,” said Johnson, who noted that by 2050 about 90 percent of the country’s population is expected to be living in urban areas.

Last week, Johnson and the nine members of the association’s advisory board — a diverse group of elected Republican mayors — convened in person for the first time in Dallas to begin mapping out the organization’s future and developing strategies to start electing more Republican mayors, including in big cities and urban areas.

“We want more quality Republican candidates to seek the office of mayor,” Johnson said of the RMA, “and that is not really being done by anybody right now.”

National Review spoke to five of the advisory board members, who contend that with the right candidates, the right support, and the right messaging, Republicans are primed to make inroads and to eventually make a difference again in America’s biggest cities.

They agreed that Republicans have a strong message on public safety, policing, and on support for job creators. And they said that Republican mayors generally do a better job of sticking to their lane — taking care of city business and budgeting responsibly — than Democrats, who often use their city positions to advocate for broad social change and to advocate for issues beyond their control, such as a cease-fire in Gaza.

Will O’Neill, the mayor of Newport Beach, Calif., pointed to the ongoing crime and homelessness crises in Democrat-dominated cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles — which are both also facing massive budget deficits — as evidence that “progressive politics have failed” and that “people do not feel safe” there anymore.

He contends that it is critical now for elected California Republicans like him to show how competent conservative leadership works at the local level by focusing on the basics — fixing potholes, maintaining infrastructure, supporting the police.

While they may be outnumbered for now, “Republicans in California, especially at the local elected position, frankly bring sanity and common sense to the conversation,” O’Neill said. “Sometimes that’s not as entertaining or sexy as resolutions dealing with international issues. But on a day-to-day basis, that’s what matters to people.”

Republican mayors are “about our streets, our water, our drains, our police, our fire. Our quality of life,” said Javier Villalobos, the mayor of McAllen, Texas, a mid-size border city.

Matthew Moench, the mayor of Bridgewater, N.J., a New York City suburb, said that for too long Republicans have written off bigger cities. But big-city voters may be open to conservative ideas, particularly amid the Democratic Party’s turn to the hard left, he said.

“The Democratic Party, I think, has gone in many areas so far to the left that people who had been traditional Democrats are all of a sudden looking around and saying, ‘I’m not sure if I’m still a Democrat,’” he said. “The Republican Party is primed to pick up those people.”

Ronald Morrell Jr., the newly elected mayor of Marion, Ind. — a small rust-belt city between Indianapolis and Fort Wayne — is venturing that Republican pro-business and pro-public-safety principles can attract new industries and transform his community.

Republicans, he said, “just have to do a better job getting our messaging out there and communicating what it is that we actually believe.”

Morrell, the first black Republican to be elected mayor in Indiana, contends that “there needs to be a concerted effort to reach out to minority populations” who are increasingly open to the Republican message.

Johnson, who is also black, agreed. “The African American community, I think, is ripe for a pretty large-scale migration over the next 20 years away from the Democratic Party to the party that actually cares about public safety, and also cares about taxes and financial issues, too,” he said.

The black community has made great financial strides in recent decades, he said, and fewer black voters are motivated by Democratic vows to protect government programs. Black voters, he said, are “looking to accumulate real wealth, like everyone else. We’re trying to build solid, middle-class families, like everyone else.”

“And you don’t do that with a government check,” he said.

“You’re not going to get my vote anymore by telling me you’re going to protect welfare, or protect Section 8 housing,” he added. “You’re going to get my vote by telling me you’re going to lower my taxes, create really high-paying jobs in my community that I’m going to be well-educated enough to fill. I’m going to be able to take care of my family doing things my way.”

Villalobos, who is Hispanic, said that when he was younger and a Democrat, he viewed the Republican Party as “a party of angry old men.”

“It isn’t really like that anymore,” he said. The Republican Party now includes “likeminded individuals of every different age, different culture, race. It’s shifting little by little.”

While the Republican brand is changing, the party still has a long way to go to reach parity with Democrats when it comes to leading big cities.

Of the 100 largest American cities, only 26 had Republican mayors as of January, compared to 63 with Democratic mayors, according Ballotpedia. When Johnson switched his party last fall, he became the only Republican mayor of one of the country’s ten largest cities.

Through the RMA, Johnson aims to “bring a fresh perspective to urban governance” that “blends traditional conservative values with innovative solutions tailored to the unique challenges cities face,” according to the group’s website.

Johnson is the RMA’s president and chairman. The organization also has six national board members, who are former mayors and business and party leaders.

The RMA intends to help to recruit mayoral candidates, raise money to support them, and to identify pollsters and consultants who can aid them. Johnson said they’ll spend their time both protecting incumbents and recruiting new candidates.

While they’ll be looking for strong candidates who generally agree on Republican principles, Johnson said the kind of Republican who can win in upstate New York is different than a Republican who can win in New York City or the Deep South. “I don’t know why that is actually such a stumbling block for some people,” he said.

“We’re going to run Republican mayors who can win,” he added.

Villalobos is confident they can make a difference, but “things never change overnight.”

“It will take time,” he said. “It might be baby steps, but we’ll get there.”