All politics is national, Cincinnati edition
In the race for the city's mayor, the shadow of Trump and the national stage loomed large.
It’s a privilege to be able to work with hard-working young journalists like Chloe, who has been helping out with American Doom and filing stories from Ohio over the past several months. But working with great contributors like Chloe is only possible thanks to American Doom’s subscribers. To support our journalism, please consider a paid subscription. Now, onto some news that has been a bit lost in the chaos. - jg
On November 4, Cincinnati retained its status as a blue city in largely red Ohio, with Mayor Aftab Pureval winning re-election thanks to a campaign ostensibly based on local issues — but with much discussion of national politics.
For Pureval, there was no way to avoid expanding his re-election campaign beyond the scope of issues only affecting Cincinnati: his opponent was Cory Bowman, half brother of Vice President JD Vance.
Bowman, a local pastor and managing partner of a coffee shop in the city’s West End, ran on a campaign being an “average citizen” — not a politician.
Aftab defeated Bowman by 37,585 out of 60,000 votes.
Bowman didn’t even have an active campaign website, but did participate in debates against Aftab. At a debate on Oct. 9 hosted by the Cincinnati Enquirer at Xavier University, Bowman insisted he would focus on local issues rather than “copy and pasting” national policy into local cities. Still, neither candidate could avoid bringing national politics into the election.
During the debate, Bowman said “police officers coming into his coffee shop” claimed crime statistics from their own department to be false and that they believe the city is unsafe.
The claims were similar to those made during the summer by other Republican officials, like Vance himself, who claimed that crime statistics in Washington D.C. were being doctored as the Trump administration made its case to deploy the National Guard within the city.
Not surprisingly, the discussion of crime in Cincinnati quickly led to discussion of a brawl on July 26. The fight between Black and white Cincinnatians went viral. Bowman claimed Pureval and police brass didn’t “fully equip” the city to deal with large crowds at a music even that night, helping to lead to the chaotic street fight that ensued.
From there, Pureval and Bowman took to predictable corners: Bowman as pro-police; Pureval as anti-MAGA. Aftab pointed out that “MAGA” city council members “decided not to support the police by underfunding the recruit council.” Police staffing in Cincinnati is down.
During the campaign, Pureval received a unanimous vote of “no confidence” from the Cincinnati Police Union. Bowman said Pureval had lost “the confidence” of law enforcement. But Bowman’s pro-police, vaguely Trumpian campaign wasn’t enough. Vance’s half-brother lost by a wide margin. Democrats also won handily over Republicans to lead the city council, winning all nine seats up for grabs.
While Democratic candidates walked away with big wins in Cincinnati, it is important to note that just 60,000 of the city’s 300,000 people voted in the election. While the voter turnout was low in comparison to the population, it actually increased by more than 16,000 voters from the 2021 election.
Democratic wins in Cincinnati reflected those across the country, where Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York, Democrats took the governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, and racked up other wins in what was largely seen as a brutal rebuke of the Trump administration and Republican leadership in Washington.
But the strength of that rebuke is up for debate. In races like those in Cincinnati and New York, the total amount of votes that went towards the winning candidates, while large, were much a fragment of the cities’ total populations. Though voter turnout in New York was up 84 percent from 2021, less than two million of the city’s eight million voters showed up to vote last month.
After Aftab won re-election, he spoke at the State of the City address, echoing the dire language of national Democrats in praising his fellow elected officials in Cincinnati.
“These past four years have been extraordinary, but they’ve also been a long road,” Pureval said. “In the wake of existential threats to our economy and severe blows to our community’s trust in local government, each of these elected officials (…) chose to serve with integrity, with intention and with a spirit of cooperation and action.”
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