Observations of the 2025 Cincinnati Election Cycle - Pre-Election Edition

We are in the home stretch of the City of Cincinnati Mayoral and Council elections. I have some observations that I have made and figured I share. No Earth shattering news at this point, which is what I expected and unless you are a fool that is what you should have expect too.

1. The Mayoral Election is not in doubt. This is most clear when the Republican challenger put his home up for sale and changed the mailing address to a Downtown apartment. I would be surprised to find out that the candidate’s wife and kids live there. I instead suspect they are living somewhere else, outside of the City, and the Republican candidate will join them officially after the election is over.
2. The City Council race for control of council is still nearly a lock for the Democratic Party. The only question is will they win 6, 7,8, or 9 seats. Depending on the number of seats that means how many non-Democrats will be in the mix for the 2026 Charlie Winburn Grandstander of the Year award. That contest will be a hot one, depending on who gets elected.
3. The local news media is just terrible. They could not have done much more to create drama and controversy during this election cycle. Republicans put bait in the water and they bit HARD and decided to become fishers of drama themselves. It is embarrassing to anyone who is involved in journalism. Drama is not journalism, drama is entertainment. The local news media took this concept over the edge this cycle and allowed that drama to be a political tool for Republicans and their proxies. Crime exists, but it is not significantly different than it has been the last few years. There is not a "Crisis" here and saying that is a total lie (yes, Liz Keating is lying on her commercials.) Local media allowed lies to be told about the City and they should be ashamed. They unfortunately do not care about facts, just appeasing their suburban/rural audience and the Republican Party. We did not get any discussion about issues that could (or will) be addressed by the next City Council. We just got entertainment all summer right up to this week's regurgitation of the summer's entertainment. Social media is not a good source for the news media, but since they don't bother gathering news (beyond checking their inbox and DM notifications), we get tripe.
4. People are so incredibly ignorant about politics and basic government structure. There are people that live outside the City of Cincinnati and outside of Hamilton County that think they can vote for Cincinnati Mayor.  There are also people that think a Trumpist candidate can win in the City of Cincinnati.  These people should not be making public comments anywhere.  It is a waste of their time, but more importantly a waste for anyone who read those comments.

So, Tuesday will come.  The "Flop" of Absentee/Early votes on election night will be the only interesting part of the election as it will give you the spin on how different Absentee/Early votes are from Election Day votes.  As it stands now, over 13,000 people have voted in the city as of Friday.  Saturday and Sunday have early voting and that is it, beyond the additional absentee votes.  Speaking of absentee votes, JD Vance and his wife did request absentee ballots this election, unlike the Mayoral Primary where Vance skipped voting for his Half-brother.  As of 10/31/2025 their ballots had not been counted as voted.  They still have a few more days for the mail to come in. I expect they will be returned, but I will laugh heartily if they don't vote all.