Democrats fear loss of municipal monopolies

By JT YOUNG

President Trump’s deployment of federal forces threatens Democrats’ municipal monopolies on political power. This is why they so strenuously object to federal assistance in cities’ law enforcement. Without overwhelming city vote totals, Democrats’ political control in states across America would collapse. 

President Trump has repeatedly injected federal resources into city law enforcement – Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Memphis, and now Portland and Chicago – where he has deemed crime to be out of local authorities’ ability or will to control it. At each intervention, national Democrat leaders have loudly protested – even in Washington, where Mayor Bowser acknowledged crime was down.

Apart from playing to their national base, Democrats’ protests rest on the reality that their power depends on maintaining their monopoly grip on cities’ huge vote totals. Of America’s top 20 cities, Democrats control 18; of the top 40, Democrats control 32; of the top 100, Democrats control 66. Notably, America’s 33^rd largest city, Fresno, California, is the largest to have a Republican mayor in a Blue state. 

For Democrats, control of cities’ huge populations means control of the states in which these are located. As examples: New York City makes up 44.3% of New York state’s population; Chicago is 21.6% of Illinois’ population; Albuquerque is 26.5% of New Mexico’s; Portland is 15.3% of Oregon’s. And these are just single-city examples; in some states, control of several big cities (e.g., Minneapolis and St. Paul are 12.8% of Minnesota’s population; Denver and Colorado Springs are 20% of Colorado’s population) make for similarly overwhelming percentages. [Editor’s note: Anchorage represents 40% of the state population.]

Why this is so important for Democrats nationally can be seen from 2024’s presidential election results. Between the coasts, Democrats were barely competitive, losing over 70% of the electoral votes cast outside California, Washington, New York, and Massachusetts. 

Even winning the less than 30% the electoral votes Democrats won between America’s coasts required them to win states like Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, and New Mexico – states where Democrat-controlled city populations were significantly larger percentages of their populations than the popular vote percentage that separated Kamala Harris from Donald Trump in them.

Even New York, a Democrat bastion (the last Republican presidential victory there was Ronald Reagan’s in 1984) is a dramatic example: While New York City is 44.3% of New York state’s population, Harris beat Trump by only 12.6 percentage points there: She did so by winning 67.7% of New York City votes – almost 1 million more than Trump and almost her entire margin of victory in New York state.

It would not take an enormous swing of city voters to be a national threat to Democrats. Each city vote that goes to Republicans effectively counts as two: one vote taken from Democrats and one given to Republicans. If formerly dependable Democrat city voters sat out an election, this still equates to votes Democrats won’t have to offset their vote deficits outside of big cities. Finally, even if Democrats were simply forced to fight to retain their city bases – votes they could, and have, taken for granted – those are resources that are unavailable for use outside of cities and in swing states they must retake to be competitive. 

To imagine the presidential impact, consider: If Democrats had simply split the popular vote in Denver, Colorado Springs, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Albuquerque, they would have lost Colorado, Minnesota, and New Mexico and an additional 25 electoral votes, taking Harris’ total down to 205 electoral votes and raising Trump’s total to 337. This outcome would have been Democrats’ worst since 1988. 

Most Americans see crime as a serious problem, and significantly more city residents see it as extremely or very serious. Crime is therefore a perfect wedge issue for enticing city voters to abandon the Democratic political monopolies surrounding them. 

Showing city voters an effective Republican response on such a central issue could also illustrate the viability of other Republican policy alternatives – on schools, basic services, taxes, and spending – now effectively nonexistent in many big cities. Having long lived under political monopolies, seeing the viability of policy competition could lead to demands for local political competition too – all to Democrats’ extreme detriment. 

As headlines daily attest, crime is a salient issue for city citizens. As America’s electoral math attests, city political monopolies are the only reason Democrats are competitive in many states – and their only hope for being competitive in presidential elections. Democrats know both these things quite well. 

The real reason Democrats are so histrionically opposing President Trump’s federal forays against city crime is because these constitute real threats to the political monopolies on which their party depends.

J.T. Young is the author of the recent book, Unprecedented Assault: How Big Government Unleashed America’s Socialist Left from RealClear Publishing and has over three decades’ experience working in Congress, the Department of Treasury, the Office of Management, and Budget, and representing a Fortune 20 company.