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