Questions to Ask a Mayor Candidate
Twenty questions for a candidate forum, a doorstep conversation, or an editorial board meeting, covering first-year commitments, what the budget and the office actually allow, donors, and how to check the answers afterwards.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What will you have done by the end of your first year?
Why ask it
You want two or three things with dates, not a list of priorities. Candidates who answer in themes rather than actions are usually protecting themselves from being measured, and the answer is worth writing down so you can check it later.
Which of those needs council approval, and do you have the votes?
Why ask it
A mayor cannot pass anything alone in most cities. Naming which members support what shows whether they have done the counting, and an answer about building consensus later means the promise is currently unfunded and unsupported.
What will you cut or stop doing to pay for what you are promising?
Why ask it
Every new spending commitment displaces something. If nothing is named, the plan relies on growth, grants, or a tax rise nobody has mentioned yet. This is the single most reliable question for separating a budget from a wish list.
How big is the city budget, and how much of it is already committed?
Why ask it
Debt service, pensions, contracts, and mandated services eat most municipal budgets, leaving a small discretionary share. A candidate who cannot describe that split, at least roughly, has not read the document they are asking to control.
What can a mayor here actually decide alone?
Why ask it
In council-manager cities the mayor may chair meetings and appoint little, while a professional manager runs operations. Candidates promising to personally fix departments they do not control are either uninformed or counting on voters being so.
How many homes were permitted last year, and what number would you aim for?
Why ask it
Two figures make the answer checkable against city records. Housing answers that stay at the level of affordability as a value, with no number and no zoning change named, commit the candidate to nothing at all.
How would you vote on the rezoning proposals currently in front of the council?
Why ask it
Live applications force a position that general housing policy does not. The pattern of what they support and what they avoid tells you which neighborhoods they expect to grow and whose objections they will accommodate.
What is the repair backlog on streets, water, and sewers, and how would you fund it?
Why ask it
Deferred maintenance is the largest hidden liability in most cities and the least attractive thing to campaign on. Candidates who can quote the backlog are usually the ones who have looked at the capital plan rather than the polling.
What would you change about policing, and what does the current contract let you change?
Why ask it
Union agreements, state law, and civil service rules limit what a mayor can do about discipline, staffing, and deployment. An answer that ignores those constraints will not survive contact with the office, whichever direction it leans.
What is your plan for people sleeping outside, and where would the housing or shelter go?
Why ask it
The location question is the one that decides whether a plan happens. Support for services in principle, with no site, no capacity number, and no funding source, is the standard answer and it has produced very little anywhere.
Which part of the city has been shortchanged, and what would it get first?
Why ask it
Asking for a named area and a named project prevents the equity answer that commits to nothing. If the area they name happens to be where their votes are, that is worth noting too.
If revenue falls short, which taxes or fees would you raise and which services would shrink?
Why ask it
Recessions and lost state aid are ordinary events, not hypotheticals. Watch for candidates who claim efficiencies will cover a shortfall, since the savings almost never arrive at the scale claimed.
Who is funding your campaign, and do any of your donors have business before the city?
Why ask it
Filings are public, so this tests candor rather than fact. Developers, contractors, and unions all have legitimate interests, and what matters is whether the candidate will name them and say how they would handle a vote affecting one.
What is the largest organization you have run, and what were its budget and headcount?
Why ask it
Running a city is a management job with thousands of employees in larger places. This puts stated experience into comparable units and reveals whether they have ever been accountable for a payroll.
Would you keep the current department heads and city manager?
Why ask it
Personnel decisions are where a new mayor's real agenda shows first. Refusing to answer is defensible, but ask what they would want changed in the first three months, which usually gets you the substance anyway.
What did you get wrong in your last job or term?
Why ask it
A specific error and what they did about it is the most reliable indicator of how they will handle a mistake in office. Blaming a predecessor, the state, or the media is the answer to remember.
Where do you disagree with the people who endorsed you?
Why ask it
Endorsements come with expectations. Naming one point of disagreement, whether with a party, a union, or a business group, is evidence of independence. Being unable to name any is evidence of the opposite.
How will residents be able to see whether you are meeting your targets?
Why ask it
Look for something concrete: a published dashboard, a quarterly report, existing open data that already tracks it. Promises of transparency without a mechanism tend to mean an annual speech.
Which of your opponents' proposals do you think is a good one?
Why ask it
Tests whether they can concede anything, which is the same skill as working with a council that disagrees with them. It also occasionally reveals genuine common ground worth holding them to after the election.
What would make you a one-term mayor?
Why ask it
A candidate willing to name the standard by which they should be removed is offering you a way to hold them to it. Answers about serving as long as the people want are a refusal, and a good closing note to record.
Preparing to question a candidate
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
First find out what your mayor can actually do
American cities mostly use one of two structures. In a strong-mayor city the mayor is the chief executive, prepares the budget, and appoints department heads. In a council-manager city, which is common in mid-sized places, a professional city manager runs operations and the mayor is one vote on the council with limited appointment power. Your city charter says which you have, and it is usually a short document. Schools are frequently governed by a separately elected board with its own budget, so a mayor may have no formal authority over them at all, and many powers over taxes, tenancy, and policing are set by state law. Knowing this before a forum means you can ask what a candidate would do with the powers the office holds, rather than listening to promises about things the office cannot touch.
Documents worth thirty minutes
- The budget summary or budget in brief, which shows how much is discretionary
- The capital improvement plan, which lists what has been deferred and for how long
- The last two council meeting agendas and minutes, for the live disputes
- Campaign finance filings, which are public and show who is funding whom
- The city charter, for the mayor's actual powers and term
- Any published performance dashboard, which gives you baseline numbers to quote
Asking at a forum or on the doorstep
One question, no preamble
Long framing gives the candidate room to answer something else. Ask the question in a single sentence, with a number in it if possible, and stop talking.
Have the follow-up ready
The useful exchange is the second question: what would that cost, who has to approve it, by when. Most forums only allow one, so make yours the one that needs a number rather than the one that needs an opinion.
Ask the same question of every candidate
Comparable answers are far more informative than a broad survey of each candidate's platform. Write the answers down at the time, since campaign literature will not record them.
Follow up in writing
Email the campaign for the specifics they could not give in the room, and keep the reply. A non-answer in writing is itself an answer, and it is what you will want in eighteen months.
Recognizing a dodge
- Answering the value instead of the question: everyone deserves housing, in response to how many units
- Promising savings from efficiency, waste, or audits with no figure attached
- Blaming the state, the county, or the previous administration for anything within city control
- Committing to convene a task force or commission, which defers the decision past the election
- Claiming credit for a project that a council majority or a predecessor delivered
- Refusing to name a single trade-off, which means the plan has not been costed
After the election
Keep the notes from the forum and check them at six and twelve months against council minutes and budget documents. Local government produces a remarkable amount of public record and almost nobody reads it, which is why first-year commitments quietly disappear. Public comment periods at council meetings are typically open to any resident, and the same specific question asked in that setting, with the date of the original promise attached, is the most effective form of local accountability available to an individual voter.