There is a long list of people who have held the office of chairman of the Hamilton County Republican Party over the years, but the newest one, former judge Russell Mock, is unique among them.
The 53-year-old from Hyde Park is the first GOP chairman in living memory to be head of what is clearly now Hamilton County's minority party.
Hamilton County has turned blue.
And Russell Mock has, voluntarily, taken on the seemingly Sisyphean task of trying to roll that boulder back up to the top of the hill.
It's no easy lift.
But Mock is unrelentingly optimistic about the possibilities.
"My goal is to keep the organization strong, recruit really good candidates and win elections," Mock said.
But it is a tough row to hoe. There is no mistaking Hamilton County for anything but Democratic blue these days — a phenomenon that took hold in this county in the 2008 "Obama wave."
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The Democratic candidates have won the last four presidential elections in Hamilton County: Obama twice, Hillary Clinton once, and Joe Biden once, with 57% of the vote.
One county office after another has been taken over by Democrats since 2016, when an unknown lawyer named Aftab Pureval made the dominos start to fall when he ousted a Republican incumbent to become clerk of courts.
All three county commissioners are Democratic women. The county prosecutor's office, where Mock works as chief prosecutor in the municipal court division, is one of the last bastions of GOP control.
Mock himself was a victim of Hamilton County's "blue wave" in 2020, when he lost his seat on the Ohio First District Court of Appeals to Democrat Ginger Bock.
Yet Mock is undeterred. He sees light at the end of the tunnel, however faint it may seem today.
"Listen, I come from Mahoning County, which had always been a Democratic county, dominated by blue collar Democrats," Mock said. "Then along comes Donald Trump and he turned Mahoning County around.
"I think we are one transformational candidate away from turning Hamilton County around too,'' Mock said.
He doesn't know who that will be just yet, but he says he has faith that it can and will happen.
In the meantime, though, he must deal with the political infighting inside his party between the hard-core social conservatives and the more moderate, pragmatic wing of the party.
Mock is clearly aligned with the latter wing of the local GOP.
His opportunity to lead the county party came somewhat unexpectedly in January when Alex Triantafilou, who had been the Hamilton County GOP chair for 18 years, suddenly ran for and won the chairmanship of the Ohio Republican Party.
RELATED: Alex Triantafilou named new head of Ohio Republican Party
Mock was one of two Republicans to apply for the job, the other being former state representative Tom Brinkman. Brinkman had the support of the culture war wing of the party, but Mock easily won the vote in the county party's central committee with 125 votes to Brinkman's 66.
"There are a lot of issues people in the Republican party want to debate, from censorship to Critical Race Theory,'' Mock said. "While they are all very important issues, they are not the most important."
The GOP, here and nationally, needs to focus on pocketbook issues such as inflation and quality-of-life topics such as crime and public safety, Mock said.
If the party gets bogged down with social issues, Mock said, "we're going to give the Democrats an easy path to winning elections."
The Hamilton County GOP, Mock said, "needs to recruit and promote candidates who can have appeal across the political spectrum. There needs to be a particular focus on winning over suburban women."
Mock said he wants to create a bench of "rising Republicans" — a set of young, diverse candidates who can appeal to non-Republicans in this blue county.
He pointed to Orlando Sonza as one of those "rising Republicans." Sonza is a 32-year-old lawyer and West Point graduate who ran in the heavily Democratic 9th Ohio Senate District last year.
Sonza only got 28% of the vote against Catherine Ingram, a long-time Democratic state representative and member of the Cincinnati Board of Education.
But Sonza has "great potential" as a candidate for county office, Mock said.
This year, the nine-member Cincinnati City Council is up for re-election, with eight Democrats who were elected two years ago. Only one non-Democrat was elected to Council — Republican Liz Keating.
RELATED: What it's like to be the sole Republican on a city council full of Democrats
"Seeing Liz Keating keep her seat on council is going to be a top priority this year,'' Mock said. "Liz has functioned as the adult in the room on Council; and the city needs that."
Mock believes there is room for growth on City Council, even with eight incumbents running for re-election. He said he believes the GOP could pick up a seat or two in this year's election. If you ask Cincinnati Democrats about that, they would say it is crazy talk.
"With the right candidates, I really believe we can do that,'' Mock said. "The issues are breaking our way."
A "no pursuit" policy mandated for Cincinnati Police, preventing them from chasing down people suspected of committing misdemeanors, is an issue Republican candidates for council could run on, Mock said.
"It just encourages law-breaking,'' Mock said.
In 2024, the "number one priority" for the county party, Mock said, will be electing Hamilton County Prosecutor Melissa Powers to a full term. Powers, a former judge and assistant county prosecutor, was recently appointed to the job when long-time prosecutor Joe Deters was appointed to the Ohio Supreme Court.
"There is no one who has her qualifications for that job,'' said Mock.
Powers is his boss, too, in his job as chief prosecutor of the municipal court division.
The Democrats will come at that office hard next year. Former Cincinnati mayor John Cranley has already said he is considering running for prosecutor.
RELATED: Cranley expresses interest in Hamilton County prosecutor role
But whether it is re-electing Keating or Powers, retaining control of boards of trustees in major townships, or trying to swing Hamilton County back to whoever the GOP presidential candidate will be next year, Mock is wading into a sea of blue.
Mock doesn't seem worried about the steep hill the party has to climb.
"I like a good challenge."
