Monday, November 06, 2017

Election Night Parties!

Campaigns like to celebrate or commiserate their efforts on election night.  Here's a list where candidates and their campaign staff and supports plan on meeting up:

Chris Smitherman - Jim and Jacks on the River (3456 River Road)
Henry Frondorf - West Side Brewing
Yvette Simpson  - Queen City Radio
Tamaya Dennard - The Vestry
Michelle Dillingham - Pendleton Arts Center
Mike Moroski - Arnold's
Hamilton County Republican Party - The Capital Grille
David Mann - The Woodburn Brewery
Brian Garry - Tillie’s Lounge
P.G. Sittenfeld- Eighth & English (O’Bryonville)
Chris Seelbach - Milton's
Derek Bauman - Milton's
Charter Committee - Arnold's
John Cranley - Americano

If there are more, I'll update as I find out about them.

Sunday, November 05, 2017

Solid Analysis on the Mayor's Race from Chris Wetterich

There have been no polls made public, but the Business Courier's Chris Wetterich has an a very solid analysis of the mayor's race.

Who wins will depend on turnout.  There is no magic to know the victors.  The only signs that point to Cranley having fear are:

  1. No internal polls have been reported, if they were good for Cranley we would have been hearing about them.
  2. Cranley has gone full born negative.  His media blitz and campaign supporters are all about tearing down Simpson and not delivering a positive message about Cranley.  Not a good sign.
This could mean it is a dead heat and the negative attacks make a marginal difference.  These negative attacks I believe have had a marginal effect, but only keeping some voters at home on election day.

Cranley will get the vast majority of the Republican votes.  His key question is will they turn out.  His other concerns are if he keeps enough of the Winburn/Tillery votes and if he's got enough old school loyal Democrats who value the State Party on his side.

Simpson's game rests on two fronts, turn out the vote and attract those spurned by Cranley and his allies.  She should get the majority of the African-American vote, but how big of a percentage will that be?  Will she also get the progressive vote to turn out?

Thursday, November 02, 2017

Council Race Heats Up

Only just over a week to go before the election and my mailbox is starting to fill up. I am disappointed seeing the State Democratic party dumping money into the Mayor's race with multiple mailers for Cranley. Even under new leadership they continue to make mistakes. Instead of trying to build a party to win in the upcoming elections, they handpicked candidates they think could have won prior elections they hope repeat in the future.

We are closer to start making some more predictions about the race. Haha! What I really mean is that I am getting closer to making some wild guesses based on conventional wisdom.  Council races are a mix of predictable and surprising.  It should be easy to predict 4 to 6 candidates.  The 4 Democratic incumbents are heavy CW favorites and the 2 Republicans (including Smitherman) have clear advantages.  What holds the 2 Republicans back is the most unpredictable element, voter turnout.  One of the most common CW tropes about Cincinnati elections is that the GOP votes more consistently in off year elections than the Dems.  Therefore the higher the turnout, the better Democratic candidates do.

I have updated my list below creating some new groups and shifting a few candidates around.  Those whom I am giving advantage is based on the campaign and a repeat turnout from 2013.  If turnout rises, look for candidates like Smitherman and Murray to fall and potentially be out of the top 9.

Lock
P.G. Sittenfeld* (D, FOP, PWR endorsed)

Likely
David Mann* (D,C, FOP, PWR endorsed)
Chris Seelbach* (D endorsed)

Some advantage:
Wendell Young* (D endorsed)
Amy Murray* (R,C, FOP, PWR endorsed)
Christopher Smitherman* (R but pretending to be I, FOP, PWR and for some reason G endorsed)
Derek Bauman (C endorsed) (D)
Tamaya Dennard (D,C, PWR endorsed)
Greg Landsman (D, FOP, PWR endorsed)

In the Mix:
Ozie Davis III (D, FOP, PWRendorsed)
Michelle Dillingham (D endorsed)
Leslie Jones (D endorsed)
Jeff Pastor (R, FOP endorsed)
Laure Quinlivan (D)

Outside Chance
Henry Frondorf (C, PWR endorsed) (D)
Seth Maney (R, FOP, PWR endorsed)
Tamie Sullivan (G, FOP endorsed) (R)

Chances Dropping
Tonya Dumas (D)
Manuel Foggie

Also Ran
Erica Black-Johnson (I)
Cristina Burcica (I)
Brian Garry (G endorsed) (D)
Kelli Prather (D)
Dadrien Washington (Write-In)


Candidate Twitter List: I have created a list of candidates on Twitter. Here is the actual list Twitter handles for the candidates.

Key
* = Incumbent
D= Democratic Party
R= Republican Party
C= Charter Committee (aka Charter Party)
G= Green Party
I= Independent
FOP= Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police (Union) Endorsement
PWR = Partnership of Westside Residence PAC Endorsement