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Former judge Russell Mock is the new chair of the Hamilton County GOP

Russell Mock, a white man in a blue suit, stands and smiles in front of shelves filled with books
Courtesy

Russell Mock, a former appeals court judge who lost his re-election bid in 2020, was elected to be the new chairman of the Hamilton County Republican Party early Thursday evening.

In a closed-door meeting of the county party's central committee at Clovernook County Club, Mock was elected over former state representative Tom Brinkman by a vote of 125 to 66, according to Green Township Trustee Triffon Callos, who has been the interim party chair for the past month.

Mock, 53, takes over the reins of the county party from Alex Triantafilou, a lawyer and former judge who headed the Hamilton County GOP for 18 years before being elected Ohio Republican party chair in January.

Mock and Brinkman, a former state representative, were the only candidates for the job in an election overseen by Callos.

Mock, who earned a law degree from the Ohio Northern University School of Law, went to work as an assistant county prosecutor in 2001. In 2004, he was appointed to a vacant Hamilton County Municipal Court judgeship by then-governor Bob Taft.

RELATED: Alex Triantafilou named new head of Ohio Republican Party

He held that municipal court judgeship until 2014, when he was elected to the 1st District Court of Appeals.

In 2020, Mock fell victim to the rapidly changing political climate of Hamilton County when he lost his judgeship on the 1st District Court of Appeals to Democrat Ginger Bock.

Hamilton County's changeover from a Republican red county to Democratic blue is a challenge the new county party chair will have to face on a daily basis.

Since losing the 1st District seat, Mock has been chief assistant for the municipal court division of the prosecutor's office. He lives in Hyde Park.

Howard Wilkinson is in his 50th year of covering politics on the local, state and national levels.