America’s largest cities — New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles — have long been symbols of Democratic power. Yet today, they are also symbols of dysfunction, plagued by crime, failing schools, homelessness, and crumbling infrastructure. What’s less discussed, however, is that these crises are not confined to the nation’s biggest urban centers. Smaller Democrat-run cities, including Baltimore, Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis, and Portland, are mired in the same struggles, often with fewer resources to fight back. Together, they reveal a national pattern: When Democratic governance dominates unchecked, decline becomes entrenched and ordinary residents pay the steepest price.

Each of these cities has different demographics, geographies, and economic challenges. But what they all have in common is over 50 years of one-party rule. The Democratic Party has had a monopoly on political power in each of these five jurisdictions for generations, without any Republicans to stop them from implementing the “best” Democratic policies. So what do Democrats do when they have all the power?

Despite spending $18,272 per student, well above the national average of $15,591, Baltimore City Public Schools routinely ranks among the worst in the nation. According to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, 8% of Baltimore’s eighth graders were proficient in math and 16% in reading. Only Cleveland and Detroit fared worse, while districts such as Duval County scored much higher despite spending far less per student ($10,696). One recent study found that 40% of Baltimore’s high schools had zero students proficient in math. 

Baltimore has long had a corruption problem that permeates every city agency. In 2010, then-Mayor Sheila Dixon was forced to resign after she was convicted of embezzlement from funds intended for needy families. In 2019, then-Mayor Catherine Pugh resigned after she pleaded guilty to tax evasion and conspiracy charges in connection with funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars for healthcare nonprofit groups to her own benefit. And in 2024, former State’s Attorney for Baltimore Marilyn Mosby was convicted on two counts of perjury and one count of making a false statement on a mortgage application. She lost her reelection bid in 2022.

With a culture of corruption coming from the top, it is not surprising that almost a dozen Baltimore City Public Schools maintenance employees were convicted of bribery and theft for billing the school system for repairs that were never completed. 

And the maintenance staff members are not the only ones cheating in Baltimore City Public Schools. A bombshell 2022 Maryland Office of the Inspector General for Education report found that half a dozen Baltimore City Public Schools administrators and principals, including illegal immigrant fraudster Ian Roberts, had fraudulently changed the grades of over 12,000 students to boost the system’s graduation rate. 

“The level of fraud in Baltimore City Schools is like a cancer,” Maryland legislators recently wrote. “It has metastasized — almost completely unchecked — for decades.”

Baltimore’s current mayor, Brandon Scott, has so far managed to avoid any corruption scandals, and he has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the school system’s failing infrastructure while generously funding other liberal policy priorities, including violence prevention, expanded extracurriculars, and summer programming. But the city’s test scores have not improved and still rank among the lowest in the nation.

Baltimore has not had a Republican mayor since 1967. 

Colorado’s homeless population has

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