Cincinnati City Council Election February 2025 Update

Big News in the Cincinnati City Council 2025 Election: Council Member Victoria Parks announced in January that she will not be seeking reelection to City Council.  That provides a very small shake up to the race. I will repeat: a very SMALL shake up.  At this point there are no indications that the domination from Democrats will face any serious challenge.  Candidates that are serious are raising money NOW. I have identified nine candidates raising money via Actblue, a fundraising application that caters to Democratic candidates. Those candidates are serious.  They are taking the needed steps to get support from the Democratic Party. The party has stated they will hold a meeting in May to vote on the recommendation of the nomination committee.  That leaves little time to demonstrate to committee members that you are a serious candidate. Time is running out for anyone else who has taken out petitions to run and is not raising money.

Getting the Democratic Party endorsement is best way to win. Getting a Democratic Party nomination may be the only way to win in Cincinnati.

The Charter Committee, long considered Cincinnati's third political party, has done a press relations offensive to demonstrate they still exist.  At this point they are being lead by Steve Goodin, a Republican, and their agenda seems to be a NIMBY push to win friends (donors) amongst the rich in Hyde Park.  They have moved their office to the Towne Properties HQ in Mt. Adams.  That makes it clear, at least to me, that the Charter Committee is under the control of Republicans. The Bortz family, long time Charter Committee supporters, are known as Republicans.  At this point, if you are a Republican that has not divorced themselves from Trump, publicly, then you are complicit with the Trump Regime.  Goodin last ran for County wide office and pushed a negative campaign designed to tap into hardcore conservatives. He lost. At best this effort is one that is designed to keep the Charter Party relevant and allow it to try to push Charter Amendments to the ballot that are designed to help Republicans claw back power in the City.  Being NIMBY is the trend that Republicans in Cities have been using in other places.  Trying to exploit the fears of home owners is a trite Republican tactic. It is not surprising for Republicans like Goodin to use fear as a wedge. Goodin seems happy with Trump in office, so fear seems like his play and laying on the Charter cloak is how he wants to build up a powerbase. He won't get anyone elected without big name recognition, money, and campaign activity. This effort can therefore be read as a way to build a new conservative power in the City, hiding the Republican Party smell. I think this will be a failure, but the local media will give them all the free press they want and will continue to push any negative story about Democratic candidates and the party.

The Republican Party is now a fascist party lead by Trump and those following him.  The Republican Party is attempting to destroy Cities.  That is not hyperbole.  That has been going on for the better part of two decades. There will not be any serious candidates running for City Council this year.  There are two unserious Republican Mayoral candidates that have one two purposes: 1) gain attention for the candidate to be better known as a way to gain influence and money in Conservative media and 2) Give the Republicans another channel to attack a City. This manufactured PR effort already has gained the attention of local journalists who want to increase their suburban (non-city) audience. All this will amount to no Republicans getting elected this election.

Left wing political groups will likely whine a bit, but their usual failures will keep them from doing anything beyond getting social media attention solely withing left wing circles.

This leaves us with a campaign that has some movement, but appears to be forming a clear path forward with nine Dems who would likely get endorsed. I expect this to be boring campaign, if you just ignore the Republicans and Leftists making pointless noise.  I am not going to give oxygen to pointless, so do not expect another update without something to report on the candidates.

Incumbant Candidates

Anna Albi (D)*
Jeff Cramerding (D)*
Mark Jeffreys (D)*
Scotty Johnson (D)*
Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney (D)*
Evan Nolan (D)*
Meeka Owens (D)*
Seth Walsh (D)*

Announced Candidates

Sol Kersey (D)

Taken Out Peititions to Run

Audricia Brooks (D)
Laketa Cole (D)
Jerry Corbett (I)
LeTecia Cunningham (I)
Ozie Davis III (D)
Ryan James (I)
Linda Matthews (R)
William Moore (I)
Brandon Nixon (I)
Michael Patton (R)
Raffel Prophett (I)
Stephan Pryor (D)
Tyrone Roberson (I)
Bart Rosenberg (D)
Gwen Summers (I)

Sharetha Collier (I) is also listed as having taken out petitions, but the address listed is in Woodlawn, outside of the City Limits. Additionally the person who has been registered to vote with the same name/address is no longer listed under that name on Hamilton County's voter registration list I have as of last month. I will monitor the lists to see if anything changes.

As always:  If anyone has any other names please send them my way (editor@cincyblog.com) or if anyone named above wants to confirm they are not running, I'll remove them future postings of this list. If there are other social media or full websites I don't list, send them along as well.

The party designations at this time are what I've seen reported or what I've determined based on my observations. These notations do not mean the candidate is endorsed by any political party or group. Once official endorsements are made, these references will be updated to reflect the endorsements. 

Key
* = Incumbent
‡ = On Ballot
D= Democratic Party
R= Republican Party
C= Charter Committee (aka Charter Party)
G= Green Party

DSA= Democratic Socialists of America
I= Independent
?= I am speculating based on my reading of the information and observations available to me or unsure.

News Media Continues to Fail Cincinnati

If you pay attention to Cincinnati politics, you should have seen the news articles about JD Vance’s half-brother running for Mayor of Cincinnati. Yes, I am annoyed by them.  Sure, coverage of local politics is a positive, but this was not about local politics. This was about tapping into fame for audience share.

The local media did the usual bad job of reporting and just wrote puff pieces. They can not afford to offend Republicans, so they create press release articles that add nothing taking away from Vance’s brother’s obvious goal of getting attention. 

For those living in the fake world of influencers, he is trying to build his brand. 

He has virtually no chance to win the Mayoral election and likely has no honest interest in Cincinnati government. I doubt he knows a damn thing about the City. In 2023, the last City election, the guy didn’t even vote. This should be a disqualifying fact, but local media just was something to entertain the Butler and Warren county Republicans, so facts don’t matter, just the narrative they wants to build. If this guy cared about the City, he would be running for City Council and local journalists know this. Instead of dismissing this candidate, like the other unknowns running, they give him MORE attention and make it all positive. That is a failure.

On top of the bad local reporting, the national and International press pushed out the headlines on Vance’s brother as a way to get clicks. The majority of them do not know the political demographics of the City of Cincinnati and could not discern it from the Cincinnati MSA. It is sad that so many national "political journalists" ether did not bother to research the viability of a Republican running for Mayor in the City of Cincinnati. If they did, they would question this guy’s sincerity from the start. Another failure, this time from afar.