[Shivetya]

trying to understand what determines which city is aligned with each party? Is it strictly who the mayor is, city council, or both?

Plus the real issue is not percentage that the rate went up but how many people does that actually mean? Going up in Chicago is going to greatly dwarf most other cities and I am not sure they are very large Republican governed cities.

In effect, they are using statistics to attempt to make the issue seem less dire than it really is. The number of deaths is ridiculous so they don't want that number out there.