Commentary: Blue City Mayors in Red States
How Blue City Mayors in Red States Are Successfully Navigating the Second Trump Term
by Howard Franklin | Published on The Well News
In the past year, navigating the second Trump administration has proved a tall order for government officials across the country. Yet nowhere has that divide been felt greater than in medium- to large-sized cities, often led by Democrats, and located in red states.
Whether contending with threats to withhold federal funding or to bring in the National Guard, or to flood their streets with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol “strike teams,” the mayors who are faring best are the ones who understand an old rule of politics that suddenly feels newly urgent: find the narrow lanes of common ground and refrain from picking fights you cannot win.
In particular, it is these mayors who have spent the first year of the second Trump administration living with a harsh reality: There is no cavalry coming.
Unlike in Chicago or Los Angeles or other solidly Democratic states where there are natural alliances between city and state, in blue cities in red states, there is no governor coming to save them with a commitment rooted in partisan alignment or agreement.
For those mayors, particularly in southern cities such as Atlanta, Georgia, Birmingham, Alabama, Memphis, Tennessee, and beyond, the optimal playbook and the governing test of the moment is not about liking or opposing Trump. It is about answering a practical question: How do you defend your values and your people without inviting a federal or state backlash that makes life worse for them?
For these mayors, if you look too eager to please Trump, you risk demoralizing your base and inviting a challenge from the left; if you swing too far in the other direction, you invite the kind of punitive response from Washington or the statehouse that your constituents will pay for.
In the past year, Atlanta may offer the clearest example of what success in this environment can look like. Over the course of his mayoralty to date, Mayor Andre Dickens has helped repair frayed city-state relations on a variety of issues and deftly kept Atlanta out of the firing line of the administration regarding National Guard deployment (despite Trump calling Atlanta in 2024 a “killing field”).
This was done in no small part through visible wins like backing the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center and coordinated crime-fighting efforts that give state leaders a stake in Atlanta’s stability, even as the mayor pushed back on Trump’s attempts to brand the city as “unsafe.” By building alliances with Republican leaders both in the state Capitol and in Washington, Atlanta has largely stayed clear of major skirmishes with the White House — including the kind of high-profile “law and order” crackdowns that have seen immigration agents surged into other big cities.
At the same time, Dickens has not become a Trump ally; he has been explicit that Atlanta will address crime and public safety “in our local ecosystem” so the city does not become a target for federal troops or agents. That is the balance.
Work closely with the governor on shared priorities like public safety and economic development but keep enough independence and enough local performance that Trump has no easy pretext to march into your city. To date, these measures have largely worked here, though with a caveat of the $37.5 million in grant money that the administration pulled from Hartsfield-Jackson Airport over concerns around diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
In Birmingham, Mayor Randall Woodfin has taken a similar tack, using American Rescue Plan dollars and a major Housing and Urban Development CHOICE Neighborhoods grants to channel funds into housing, food security, utilities relief and neighborhood upgrades, while partnering with federal law enforcement on targeted gun-violence initiatives against repeat shooters. It has allowed him to show that Birmingham is using federal resources responsibly and taking crime seriously, making it a poor target for Trump-era attacks on “failed blue cities.”
In Memphis, Mayor Paul Young has charted a similarly careful course. After the Trump administration moved to send the National Guard into the city over his objections, Young made clear he had neither requested the deployment nor believed it would reduce crime. He still insisted on tightly coordinating their mission, so they focused on traffic control, event security, surveillance support and even neighborhood beautification instead of acting as frontline police. At the same time, his administration has leaned into partnerships with federal agencies — working closely with HUD on mixed‑income housing like the South City redevelopment.
In an era defined by performative political outrage, these pragmatic mayors are choosing incremental, unglamorous wins over public crusades.
At its best, this moment has rediscovered an older kind of municipal leadership: less performative, more practical.
In doing so, they are quietly writing a new template for urban leadership in hostile territory, one that demands a relentless focus on what can actually be delivered for residents.
Howard Franklin is the founder and president of Ohio River South, a southern government affairs firm advising leading companies, nonprofits and public officials across the region.