Talk:List of mayors of the 50 largest cities in the United States

Opening heading
The template appears too big at the bottom of Wikipedia articles so that you can't get to (or read) the names on the right-hand side of the template.

No party affiliations on Texas mayors
Why do none of the Texas mayors have a party affiliation? I understand that Texas has nonpartisan civic elections, in the sense that party labels don't appear on ballots, but most if not all of them do have a party affiliation. (Houston's Annise Parker is clearly identified on her article page as a Democrat, for instance.) There are other states with nonpartisan city elections -- California, for instance -- and the party affiliations from those states are listed here. --Jfruh (talk) 00:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
 * All Texas Mayors are now identified based upon public declarations of party affiliation. --Amplifiedlight (talk) 10:30, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * In Texas, municipal candidates DO NOT publicly "declare" party affiliations in their campaign! Candidates running for municipal positions are elected on a non-partisan basis.  Party affiliations are not designated by either "R" or "D" after their name in print media. –RJN (talk) 21:14, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * This is true in other states as well -- in California, for instance -- and it's not particularly relevant, because these mayors do have party affiliations, which can be discovered with little or no effort. Bill White, for instance, was elected Mayor of Houston in a nonpartisan election, and then ran for Governor of Texas as a Democrat.  He didn't magically become a Democrat before his gubernatorial run; he was a Democrat all along. The table should indicate the mayors' party affiliation (when we can determine it) whether or not it appears on the ballot that elected them mayor. --Jfruh (talk) 22:24, 17 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Candidates for municipal positions in Texas DO NOT RUN ON PARTY PLATFORMS! They might be endorsed by a party during their campaign, but they do not run on party platforms.  They do NOT campaign as democrats or republicans.  Political signs and literatures do NOT state they are democrats or republicans.  They all run as INDEPENDENTS in Texas municipal elections.  Your attempt to revert by explaining Bill White is not relevant to the current template.  I am quite aware that Bill White ran as a Democrat in the last gubernatorial election. Perhaps you should research on municipal politics in Texas. –RJN (talk) 01:29, 18 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I fully understand how municipal politics work in Texas, at least in this regard. If you'll read what I wrote, it works the same way in other states -- in California, for instance, even though we list party affiliation for all the California mayors.


 * Nevertheless, these politicians have party affiliations. Bill White, while he was mayor of Houston, was a Democrat. He was a member of the Democratic party, and he was active in Texas state Democratic politics.  He was not a political independent.  The fact that during his mayoral campaigns he didn't have a "D" next to his name on the ballot didn't mean that he wasn't a Democrat. (I'm guessing that, as is the case in most big cities with nonpartisan elections, his opponents were by and large Democrats as well.)  What does "do not run on party platforms" mean, exactly? No politician in the country just runs on a straight party platform, whether a letter appears after their names or not.


 * Anyway, I'm not going to revert because we're getting into 3RR territory, but I think a third-party opinion would be helpful. --Jfruh (talk) 02:29, 18 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Can we not compromise? Yes, while it is true that a Texas municipal candidate's party affiliation is not listed on the ballot, many if not most mayors do not shy away from their partisan beliefs and declare or list an affiliation. So for those where this can be sourced why not list it, or at the very least, indicate with an asterisk any cities or states where it's not based upon one listed on the ballot? I feel those who use and in particular read this table the most would rather we be more complete in listing all partisan data than less. --Amplifiedlight (talk) 07:34, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually no one in Texas (since that's the state cited here) has a party affiliation; the state does not register voters with a party. It's simply not available. Same is true for Vermont, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Washington and Hawaìi. And several states, among them California, Idaho, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Wisconsin (that I know of) not only run nonpartisan municipal elections but require them to be nonpartisan. In California it's part of the state constitution. I think, though not sure, that Texas also has this law, but I do know the municipal elecitons in Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio and El Paso are all nonpartisan. That makes MOST of these random party listings, in Texas and everywhere else, spurious and in fact, disinformation; when has Wikipedia seen fit to base stats on "most of them are known"? "Known" by who? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.34.130.55 (talk) 15:52, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Still out of date
The template is still using the out-of-date rankings. The current rank as of the 2010 Census is already at List of United States cities by population.--Cúchullain t/ c 17:48, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Interestingly, only the first 13 cities had a few out of order--every city from 14 on was in the right ranking. In any case, the chart has now been updated. Dralwik|Have a Chat 21:23, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Update Needed Regarding Mayor of Virginia Beach, Virginia
This article needed to be updated to reflect the April, 2018 resignation of Virginia Beach, Virginia Mayor Will Sessoms. I would have done it myself, but according to the "edit preview", I would have messed up the wiki-table formatting.--TommyBoy (talk) 00:41, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Nevermind, problem solved.--TommyBoy (talk) 02:49, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Out of date again
Thelda Williams has replaced Greg Stanton as Mayor of Phoenix. SecretName101 (talk) 17:21, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 14:22, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
 * DEE-MARGO crop.jpg

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:06, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Thelma Williams Mayor of Phoenix.jpg

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 13:22, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
 * David Briley.jpg

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 21:06, 1 May 2019 (UTC)
 * OKC Mayor David Holt FINAL Portrait.jpg

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:52, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Lee Brand.jpg

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:37, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Mayor-Lori-Lightfoot-Portrait-1200x1800.jpg

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 05:59, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Lee Brand (1).jpg

Honolulu
OK, this is a weird edge case. Wonder what people think about it.

In almost all lists of cities in the US by population, the population used for Honolulu is for the CDP, which includes the built up area that most people think of as the "city" of Honolulu. It's 58th on the list of largest US cities, so its mayor wouldn't be on this list.

However ... the Honolulu CDP doesn't actually have any government of its own. The only local government body is the City and County of Honolulu, which includes the whole island of Oahu and has a population of about 950,000. The chief executive of the City and County of Honolulu, Rick Blangiardi, thus has more people under his jurisdiction than all but the top 11 people on this list. So it seems a little strange that he's not on it! --Jfruh (talk) 07:45, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , hmmmm good point. I think Honolulu should be included. While county executives in some other states are also called mayors, in this case he acts more like a typical city mayor managing municipal issues just like any other mayor, with no level of government below him. I'll also note the population for Indianapolis is currently the Indianapolis (balance) population, which excludes the other cities in Marion County, even though the mayor is still in charge of them. Same goes for Jacksonville, Nashville, and Louisville, where the population is that of the city only, even though the mayor runs the whole consolidated county. I'd say all populations and rankings should go by total people governed. Reywas92Talk 08:21, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 09:07, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
 * 5cb537ef086eb.image.png

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 14:07, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Cavalierjohnson.jpg

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 07:37, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * JohnCooper-150x200.png

The entire "Party" column is grossly misleading
Listing political parties for Mayors that don't have any is factually just wrong. Without switching over to the main page and just off the top of my head Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Phoenix, Atlanta and ALL cities in California, New Mexico and Oklahoma by state law, and others I didn't cite here do not run political parties in their elections or list them. They're nonpartisan. The page as it stands is presenting a mythology that "political parties" are somehow involved in city management. 192.34.130.235 (talk) 19:05, 29 September 2023 (UTC)


 * The elections are nonpartisan, but the politicians are not. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:06, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Politicians run with whatever party fits their needs at the time; it has zero to do with them personally or ideologically. When the page claims that "Mayor John Smith is a Democrat" it's saying that John Smith ran with, and was sponsored by, the Democratic Party, and in most cases that is simply wrong. So no, politicians are not partisan; elections are. Any politician can, and does, change parties like shirts. If it were some sort of "personality trait", that would be impossible. 192.34.130.55 (talk) 15:57, 19 June 2024 (UTC)