You can love it or hate it, but if you are a Cincinnati voter you can’t deny it — Cincinnati has a one-party government residing Downtown at 801 Plum Street.
And that party is the Democratic Party.
Tuesday morning, the early voting period for the November 4 election began, with a field of 26 candidates on the ballot vying for one of the nine Council seats.
Every one of those nine seats, for the past two years, has been held by a Democrat — 100% blue.
The nine Democratic Council members serve under a Democratic mayor, Aftab Pureval, who is running for a second four-year term against a rookie candidate in Republican Cory Bowman, whose claim to fame is that he is Vice President JD Vance’s half-brother.
Being kin to Vance may not be the best calling card in a city where 77% of the voters cast ballots for Kamala Harris in November 2024.
Since direct election of Cincinnati’s mayor was adopted in 2001, Bowman is only the second Republican to run in the general election. From Charlie Luken to Mark Mallory to John Cranley, and, finally to Aftab Pureval, all the directly elected mayors have been Democrats.
In the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, one-party rule by Republicans has lasted for decades. But in Cincinnati, Democrats see a future where they will be the big dogs at City Hall for decades to come.
“It seems like one-party government may not be an exception, but the rule in Cincinnati,” said Mack Mariani, professor of political science at Xavier University. “But this is what the voters have chosen. It’s pretty clear this is a very Democratic city.”
At most, Mariani said, only 25% to 35% of Cincinnati voters are going to vote for Republicans.
Just the sheer number of candidates on the ballot this year tells a lot, though, about whether the Democratic incumbents are vulnerable in this election.
The issues that could change Council
Two years ago, when Council had an 8-1 split in favor of the Democrats, there were only 10 candidates on the ballot. The only non-incumbent was Democrat Anna Albi of Madisonville — and she ended up squeezing out the only Republican on Council, Liz Keating, creating an all-Democratic Council.
The field was so small because, in 2023, there really were no hot-button issues on the table at City Council. Any potential foes respected the power of the Democratic Party slate card, mailed and hand-delivered to thousands of Cincinnati voters.
No one can say there are no issues for non-incumbents to run on in 2025. That’s why there are 26 Council candidates on the ballot this year.
Among the issues that non-incumbents are using to go after Democratic incumbents are the concerns about crime in neighborhoods, opposition to the Connected Communities zoning policy, and the ongoing battle over the Hyde Park Square development.
Attorney Steve Goodin — a former Republican Council member, who is on the ballot again this year — heads up a slate of five Council candidates endorsed by the Charter Committee, Cincinnati’s self-described “good government committee,” which has been endorsing (and often electing) Council slates for the past century.
“The current Council doesn’t listen to the voice of the people because it doesn’t have to,” Goodin said. “They just follow whatever the mayor wants. The mayor dictates and Council simply follows his lead.
“I can’t even remember when there was an actual substantive debate on the floor of Council over any ordinance,” Goodin said. “It’s just an echo chamber for the mayor.”
Alex Linser, chairman of the Hamilton County Democratic Party, rejects Goodin’s characterization of Council as a rubber stamp for Pureval.
The political make-up of City Council, Linser said, reflects the reality of politics in 2025 in what has become a heavily Democratic city.
“What are the voters supposed to do?” Linser said. “Elect a bunch of MAGA people?”
Mariani said it would probably be a good thing to have a different point of view on Cincinnati City Council, as it did when Liz Keating was there. And he said he thinks it's possible Republicans and Charterites could pick off a Council seat or two.
But, Mariani said, there may not be enough Republican voters left in the city to do anything about it.
“Republicans have been voting with their feet for a long time now,” Mariani said. “They have gone to Warren County, to Butler County, to Northern Kentucky, or Florida.
“What’s left is a Democratic voter base that has what it wants in City Hall,” Mariani said. “They want Democrats in charge.”
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