yeah local politicians are a bit different tho I think the national parties "encourage" them in vcertain ways. In big cities it is mostly democrats, in rural towns and suburbs it is mostly repubs. Why might those types be most likely to get elected in there respective local areas? That ends up being a 50-50% split of the population, not exactly but close enough to be able to effectively control us on the local level. If you lived in a small town and voted for a repub mayor, he might promise to reduce taxes all the way down to zero, but he wouldn't be able to get away with it because national republicans would remove support from him.