Not sure about you, but if I didn't know better, I would think we are still a year or more away from the next Cincinnati City Council Election. In reality, the deadline to turn in petitions to get on the ballot for the election is a mere four and a half months away.
That means campaigns, any serious campaign, should be in high gear. At this point, I don't see any campaign in high gear. Sure, the incumbents are in the news, but campaigning seems to be quiet. The main reason for this is likely the overwhelming victory of the Democratic Party in the last election (2021.) Nothing seems to be happening from any other group to challenge them. The Republicans seem to be settling for a single seat, which they are only hanging on to because Republican Liz Keating has taken very moderate stances while in office and campaigning.
The Charter Committee seems to be either dead or has gone into indefinite hibernation. They have no coherent message message to offer, other than being the party that will cross endorse candidates and the only value there is that a few more donors will contribute to a moderated Republican candidate (like Keating).
That leaves only two questions at this point for the November election. 1) Who will get the 9th Democratic Party Endorsement and 2) Will Michelle Dillingham run for office?
The answer to #1 seems to be lining up for Jamie Castle. At this point, there are no other experienced and credible Democrats who have taken out petitions to get on the ballot. Those nominations should be made very soon.
The answer to #2 on the surface seems like no, Michelle Dillingham is not running for City Council. Her campaign website is gone and since she and her supporters really poorly handled the process to appoint a replacement for Greg Landsman's seat late last year, her electability has not improved. If she still wants to get on council it might be a good idea to sit out a cycle or two and wait for some term limits to come into play or other churn on council to open up more seats and gamble that people will forget how her history of needlessly confrontational campaigning and social media discourse would be a sign that she would not be good at governing and is more of just an activist, with the goal of gaining attention for a cause.
Does that leave us with a race only for ninth place? Is this a Liz Keating v Jamie Castle race? OR will Liz climb higher in the results as the only Republican candidate? Republicans are just fading away in both the City and Hamilton County, but low voter turnout has traditionally been beneficial to Republican candidates. At this point there is nothing point to anything other than a conventional wisdom election.
I am sure leftists will ache and moan about something, while they continue to fail to create a viable governing strategy. Instead they will continue to push a puritanical socialist agenda that has so far produced nothing but losing campaigns.
Rufus Bowman (?)
Audricia Brooks (?)
Lawrence Brzezinski (?)
Linda Matthews (R)
Boyd Miller (?)
Quentin Taylor (?)
Michelle Dillingham (D)
Jackie Frondorf (D,C)
Alyson Steele Beridon (D)
Brian Garry (D)
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.
Key
* = Incumbent
‡ = On Ballot
D= Democratic Party
R= Republican Party
C= Charter Committee (aka Charter Party)
G= Green Party
I= Independent
?= I am speculating based on my reading of the information and observations available to me or unsure.
