Now that we have taken a look at the big picture in Ohio, it's time to drill down to some of the significant local contests voters will find on their ballots this fall:
Mission 1 for GOP: Keep the Hamilton County prosecutor's office
The once-almighty Republican empire in Hamilton County government has been whittled down in recent years to only two elective offices — county engineer and county prosecutor.
The Hamilton County Prosecutor's office is the big-ticket item for the county GOP. It is the first time in a generation that longtime prosecutor Joe Deters hasn't been on the ballot, having been plucked from that office by Gov. Mike DeWine to fill a hole in the Ohio Supreme Court.
The prosecutor's office — under Deters, under Art Ney, under Si Leis and others — has been the Hamilton County Republican Party's farm club for future judges, with assistant prosecutors being appointed to and winning election to judgeships for decades.
That's how the incumbent prosecutor, Melissa Powers, got her start, spending 16 years as a judge before being appointed by the party to replace Deters last year.
But Powers must run in November; and keeping that office in Republican hands is the county party's stated top priority, ranking higher than delivering votes for Donald Trump or U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno or anything else.
No Democrat has held the Hamilton County prosecutor's office in 92 years. The GOP has been in charge since 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, when FDR was elected to his first term as president.
RELATED: Connie Pillich will take on Republican Melissa Powers for Hamilton County prosecutor
The Democrat running this year has no experience as a prosecutor, but a long resume. Connie Pillich of Montgomery is a former Air Force officer who served for five years as a state representative and worked as a public defender.
Pillich is likely to be outspent by Powers.
But what she has going for her is a force that money can't buy: The fact that this is becoming an increasingly Democratic county in a year when Democrats are likely to turn out in droves for President Biden and Senator Sherrod Brown.
Grudge match
Jim Neil is the former Democratic sheriff of Hamilton County. Now he is the Republican candidate for sheriff, taking on the Democratic incumbent, Charmaine McGuffey, who is someone Neil fired from the sheriff's department seven years ago.
McGuffey sued; and the county settled the case for $474,000 shortly before she became sheriff.
Get your pencils and scorecards ready, folks. This takes some explaining:
Neil was sailing along as the Democratic sheriff in 2016 when he inexplicably showed up at a Donald Trump rally in Butler County, where he was seen, in full uniform, applauding Trump for all the world to see.
Neil said he was only there because his buddy, Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones, a Republican, invited him and he was just being neighborly.
The leadership of the Hamilton County Democratic Party wasn't buying that.
RELATED: Sheriff Neil's Trump rally visit comes back to haunt
In early 2020, at a tumultuous meeting of the party's central committee at the Laborers Union Hall in Evanston, Neil was stripped of his Democratic endorsement and stood by as it was awarded to McGuffey.
Neil then ran against McGuffey in the March 2020 primary and lost.
Two years later, the former sheriff from Sayler Park announced he was switching parties.
Today, he is the Republican candidate for sheriff.
He says he wants to restore "honesty" and "integrity" to the sheriff's office.
Democrats say he's too late — McGuffey has already done that.
Sadly, an unexpected race is coming
The grief over the recent death of Hamilton County Auditor Brigid Kelly, struck down by cancer at the far-too-early age of 40, has been deep and profound, among political people and all of those who knew her.
But Kelly knew she did not have long to live; and she faced that bravely.
A week before her death, she delivered a letter to the county commissioners, read in public session, saying she hoped the Democratic Party central committee would recommend State Rep. Jessica Miranda of Forest Park as her replacement.
RELATED: Former state lawmaker, Hamilton County Auditor Brigid Kelly has died
The central committee will meet later this month. There is no reason to believe at this point that the party won't carry out Kelly's wishes.
If that happens, Miranda will have to run in November for the remainder of Kelly's term as auditor, which runs through 2026.
The Republican Party would have until Aug. 12 to name their candidate for auditor. On Wednesday, Hamilton County GOP Chairman Russell Mock sent out a call for Republicans interested in running to contact the party by April 10.
The domino effect in Ohio races
Miranda, currently the minority whip of the Ohio House, has already said that if she is appointed to the auditor's office she would like the party to replace her with Karen Brownlee, a social worker from Symmes Township.
Brownlee has run for Symmes Township trustee and lost.
Jenn Giroux, a vocal, hardcore opponent of abortion who owns The Catholic Shop in Madeira, will be the GOP candidate in Miranda's 28th Ohio House District.
Giroux was defeated by Democrat Rachel Baker in the 27th Ohio House District two years ago. Since then, Symmes Township has been drawn out of the 27th District.
ANALYSIS: There's a lot at stake on Ohio's November ballot. Here's what to start researching now
Baker is running for a second term this year in a district that has been redrawn to make it a bit more difficult for a Democrat, but she has proved to be popular, particularly in her home base of Anderson Township.
Her Republican opponent, Curt Hartman of Anderson Township, is an attorney for various conservative causes and clients, and was briefly a common pleas court judge.
