2026 Was Full of Surprises. 2028 Will Be Even More Interesting. The Race Starts Now.

The proposal

Every candidate for mayor should begin publishing their positions now, in writing and in plain language, not in the last months before the vote. We expect 2028 to be at least as surprising as 2026, and probably more so. The goal is a well-informed electorate by the time ballots go out.

What 2026 showed us

This article takes no side on who won or lost in 2026. The point is how hard it was to predict.

The primaries set the tone. NPR counted 13 members of Congress who lost their primaries this year, and a record wave of retirements and departures, with only one election in the last century seeing more. Challengers beat established incumbents in both major parties.

November kept going. Control of Congress changed hands. A U.S. Senate race in Mississippi came down to a margin of only 65 votes out of more than 945,000 counted, with an estimated 95 percent of ballots in, and was not called until November 11, more than a week after Election Day. Several newcomers won in places where no one expected them to, including a 19-year-old who was leading in a county clerk race in Arizona and a 22-year-old elected to a county commission in Georgia, according to unofficial results. In Iowa, a state House candidate who had suspended his campaign in September was still on track to win.

Voters, candidates, and incumbents were all surprised. Forecasts missed. Seats thought to be safe were not.

Why we expect 2028 to be as surprising, or more

If this was the mood in a midterm year, we expect 2028 to be at least as unpredictable, and for mayoral candidates it comes with a bigger change: in many cities, the mayor's race will share a ballot with a presidential election.

Local elections held on their own draw a small slice of the public. Turnout is often below 20 percent, and sometimes below 10. A presidential year draws far more people. A 2025 comparison of big cities found presidential turnout in 2024 well above turnout in each city's latest mayoral race: 54 percent against 23 in New York, 58 against 15 in San Antonio, and 70 against 15 in Charlotte.

Cities that moved their local elections to even years saw the effect directly. A Citizens Union report found San Francisco's mayoral turnout rose from 36 percent in 2019 to 76 percent in 2024, and Baltimore's went from 13 percent in 2011 to over 55 percent in the presidential years since. A mayor chosen in a presidential year is chosen by many more people, and many of them have not been following city government.

We expect a historic number of candidates for mayor

This is our forecast, not a count. We think 2028 will bring more people filing to run for mayor than any year before it, for four reasons:

A bigger electorate is a bigger prize. A mayor's race that reaches several times as many voters is worth running in for people who would have sat out a low-turnout election.
2026 showed that no seat is safe. Incumbents lost, forecasters missed, and newcomers won. Potential candidates will notice.
Young and first-time candidates just won. Each unexpected winner tells the next person that it can be done.
The 2026 cycle already saw big fields elsewhere. Ballotpedia counted more major-party candidates for Texas legislative seats than in any cycle since 2010, and researchers at Rutgers reported a record number of women running for the U.S. House.

A crowded field is good for democracy, but it is hard on voters. When a dozen or more names are on the ballot, it takes real effort to tell them apart.

Why informing voters has to start now

A first-time or occasional local voter walks into the booth having heard a great deal about national races and almost nothing about the mayor's. Without information, they decide on a name, a label, an ad, or skip the race. Add a historic number of candidates, and that gets worse.

A mayor affects daily life directly: streets, water, housing, public safety, budgets. The people choosing one should know what each candidate would do, and that takes months, not weeks.

The tradeoffs

Who pays: candidates give up the comfort of vagueness. Publishing early gives opponents time to attack the details. Incumbents give up the advantage of a quiet start.
Who benefits: voters, who get months to read, compare, and question. Candidates with strong ideas benefit too, because good ideas improve under early scrutiny.
The risks: national news may crowd out local coverage, early positions can be misrepresented, and a crowded field can split the vote. Writing clearly and publishing in full is the best defense.

What we are asking

Candidates: publish your plans in writing. Say what you would do, how, and what it costs. Answer your opponents' proposals directly, including the ones on this site.
Incumbents: don't assume a quiet campaign. Explain your record and your plans early, and take on challengers' ideas in public.
Residents: ask every candidate the same questions, and ask for the answers in writing.
Reporters and community groups: host side-by-side comparisons and debates early, not only in the final weeks.

That is why Mayor City exists. These articles are our contribution: ideas stated clearly enough to be argued with, published early enough to be improved.

What would change our mind

If filing numbers for mayor in 2028 come in ordinary, we will say our forecast was wrong. And if someone shows that early, detailed publishing informs fewer voters than a different approach, such as a shared candidate questionnaire or a public comparison tool, we would adopt it.

2026 was full of surprises. 2028 will be even more interesting. The race starts now.