Cincinnati Election Rundown 2021

Election Day has come and gone and unsurprisingly, it was a whirlwind of a day. The sum it up, 8 out of the 9 endorsed Democrats won seats on City Council, the 4 endorsed School Board candidates won and the 1 judicial candidate the Dems endorsed eked out a win. But let’s go a bit more into detail:

The Predictions Were Wrong

Prior to election day, many people put out their list of predictions. I saw predictions from Jason Williams at The Enquirer, predictions from Charlie Winburn and several others. However, I did not see any predictions that actually prophesied the outcome that ended up coming to fruition. The Democratic Slate, endorsed by the Hamilton County Democratic Party, ruled the day within the city limits. Going into election day, I personally assumed we’d probably end up with between 2 and 3 Republicans mainly because they were all appointed recently and had on-the-job experience as well as name recognition. But what many of us, myself included, did not account for is how deep blue the City of Cincinnati has become. In just four years, we went from electing five Democrats to council to now electing eight. So, in the end, all the predictions were crap and they should always be taken with a grain of salt. I never put out a list publicly, but I assumed we would’ve ended up with Goodin, Keating, Flynn and Tarbell at minimum. For how munch angst many Democrats had about this slate, it ended up delivering the goods. I believe the slate was strong for a few reasons:

A) With 35 candidates running, voters felt overwhelmed and could not possibly research all of those candidates themselves, so they deferred to the judgement of the Hamilton County Democratic Party. With only one legitimate incumbent running for re-election, voters most likely needed guidance on who to vote for since there were so many first-time candidates and unrecognizable names.

B) When Aftab runs, he drives up Democratic turn out in elections. The party has been conditioning loyal Democrats to vote the slate for several years now and the same was true in 2018 when Aftab ran for Congress. I assume many of those same loyal Dems and Aftab supporters turned out and voted the slate. And here’s the thing about Aftab, he’s a rock star politician. He’s like having Tom Brady on your team; he makes everyone else look better.

C) Most of the Democratic slate seemed to work together as a cohesive unit. In 2017, it was not the most unified group of candidates. This go around, it seemed like the slate was working well together most of the time. You have to give credit to HCDP’s former Executive Director, Eddie Davenport, who designed this playbook as well as the current HCDP executive Director, Ellen Rakowski, who worked under Davenport for several years and picked up right where he left off when he stepped down.

Dems Capture Eight Council Seats

My personal opinion is that had the party endorsed Michelle Dillingham, they would’ve gone 9 for 9. However, that did not happen and Phil O’Neal was the only endorsed candidate to not get elected. As the results trickled in on election night, it seemed clear there was a 3-way battle going on between O’Neal, Dillingham and Republican Liz Keating. It seemed like many Democrats were split on O’Neal and Dillingham, which allowed Keating to sneak in and get the 9th council seat. But it was a field race, so that is just an assumption on my part. Voting for candidates in a field race is not a binary choice and they’re extremely difficult to predict and analyze in a micro sense.

In the 2017 election, Republicans fared much better than in 2021. In 2017, the 8th and 9th council spots were won by two Republicans; Amy Murray and Jeff Pastor. I’d also argue that Smitherman is a Republican, although some may disagree with that assessment. In summary, we went from electing two Republicans and one pseudo-Republican to only electing one in 2021. With all of that being said, I’d say the writing is on the wall for Republicans running candidates within the city limits and they may just have to give up on city elections all together. They’ll continue to be successful in the townships and suburban school board elections, but county-wide elections will also get harder in the coming years.

Dillingham and Keating

For the second consecutive election, Michelle Dillingham came in tenth place. As mentioned earlier, it was a bit of a battle for the 9th spot and it ultimately came down to Dillingham and Keating. Friend of the blog, Bryan Corder, ended up making a fancy map that compared Dillingham’s vote totals against Keating’s vote totals. Keating performed very well on Cincinnati’s west side as well as the east side where she resides in Hyde Park. Keating was the top vote getter in places like Sayler Park, Riverside, the East End, several precincts in Westwood, Hyde Park, Oakley and Mt. Washington as well as one precinct in West Price Hill. Cincinnati’s west side has a reputation of being friendly towards Republicans and they came through in a big way for Keating in 2021. On the other end of the spectrum, Dillingham’s best vote totals came in places like Northside, Clifton, Avondale and Bond Hill. But it was not enough to keep up with Keating or the Democratic slate. Sadly, Dillingham was not the top vote getter in any precinct. Not being endorsed by a political party is always an uphill battle in any election and had she been endorsed, I firmly believe she would’ve been the 9th city council member.

Brighter Days Ahead?

In the end, things are looking up for the City of Cincinnati. City voters elected a competent mayor who did excellent work at the Clerk of Courts office and multiple city council members that possess the ability to govern and work collaboratively. City elections are some of my least favorite elections because the Democrats cannibalize each other and it becomes a pissing contest to show who is the most Democratic and who is the most loyal to the party.

Looking past all the political party drama, some issues this council needs to tackle include pedestrian safety, street calming, litter clean up, equitable development and affordable housing. I am cautiously optimistic, but city politics are dirty and City Hall seems to bring out the worst in people. It is an office I surely never want to seek, but applaud those that have pure intentions of trying to bring good government back to City Hall. We are closing a chapter on an extremely divisive and corrupt time in our city’s history and there are very high expectations that corruption and political favors will not rule the day.