Which of the 50 largest US cities have Democratic mayors and are located in Republican-led states?

Executive Summary — Straight to the Finding

A set of the supplied analyses claim that multiple of the 50 largest U.S. cities have Democratic mayors while their states are governed by Republicans, but the datasets and conclusions are inconsistent and sometimes contradictory. The underlying fact-check requires a crosswalk of (a) the 50 largest U.S. cities, (b) each mayor’s partisan affiliation, and (c) each state’s partisan control as of November 2025; the collected analyses provide partial lists and assertions but lack a single consistent, dated cross-reference to verify a definitive roster ^[1].

1. What the sources actually claim — overlapping lists, not one truth

The materials supplied offer multiple overlapping claims about which large cities meet the test: several analyses state that Austin, Nashville, Jacksonville, Louisville, Indianapolis, Phoenix, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, El Paso, and others have Democratic mayors in states described as Republican-led ^{[2] [3]}. One analysis explicitly reports that among the 100 largest cities 66 mayors are Democrats and 23 Republicans, but it stops short of mapping those mayors to the partisan control of their states ^[4]. Another source lists the 30 largest cities with a heavy Democratic mayoralty share (27 Democrats) but does not extend to the full 50 or cross-check state leadership ^[3]. These claims are presented repeatedly yet with internal contradictions — for example, Oklahoma City is alternately listed as Democratic and Republican-led by different snippets ^[1].

2. Why these discrepancies matter — definitions and methods change the answer

The analyses highlight two recurring methodological gaps that produce divergent lists: first, many municipal elections are officially nonpartisan, so partisan labels are inferred from prior partisan activity or media/organizational classifications, a method Ballotpedia and other compilers use ^[1]. Second, the phrase “Republican-led state” is not consistently defined across the materials — some appear to mean governor’s party, others mean trifecta control of state government. Without a uniform definition and a consistent snapshot date, lists that claim “Democratic mayor in Republican-led state” can be correct under one method and false under another. The sources themselves acknowledge these limitations, noting that party identification is compiled from varied signals and may change with new elections or reclassifications ^{[1] [4]}.

3. Cross-checks the sources do provide — partial confirmations and contradictions

Where the materials overlap, several city-state pairings are repeatedly identified: Austin and other Texas cities (many listed as having Democratic mayors) are cited as examples of Democratic municipal leadership in a state described as Republican-led; Phoenix, Arizona, and Nashville, Tennessee, are also frequently named ^{[2] [1]}. Yet the same corpuses sometimes list cities differently: Oklahoma City is alternately characterized as Democratic and Republican, and Fort Worth is variably labeled ^{[2] [1]}. One published list of the 30 largest cities dated September 14, 2025, spells out mayoral partisan counts (27 Democrats, 2 Republicans, 1 independent) but does not make the state partisan-control crosswalk that this question requires ^[3]. These partial confirmations show patterns but not a definitive roster.

4. The big-picture takeaway — a reliable answer needs precise rules and a dated crosswalk

To produce a definitive list one must set three explicit rules and then apply a dated dataset: (a) decide whether “Republican-led state” means governor only or GOP control of the governorship plus one or both legislative chambers; (b) accept only self-identified partisan affiliations or include media/Ballotpedia inferences for nonpartisan offices; and (c) fix a snapshot date (for this task, the analyses aim at November 2025). The supplied materials do not uniformly apply those rules, so while they indicate that several large cities with Democratic mayors sit in states where Republicans hold significant state-level power, they stop short of a single, authoritative list ^{[4] [1]}.

5. How to get a verifiable list now — recommended immediate steps

A verifiable answer requires four quick steps: compile the officially recognized list of the 50 largest U.S. cities by population; pull each mayor’s partisan affiliation from a named, dated source (e.g., Ballotpedia’s city pages or official mayoral bios as of Nov 2025); determine each state’s partisan control using a specific definition (governor or trifecta) with a dated snapshot; and then publish the crosswalk with sources for each city-state pair. The supplied analyses supply much of the raw mayoral-party data and summary claims (66 Democratic mayors of the 100 largest, repeated city examples), but they do not present that crosswalk with a uniform methodology or single date, so they cannot be accepted as a final, authoritative list without that additional, dated verification ^{[1] [4] [3]}.