May 4th Election Recap

The Winners

Just like that, the May 4th election is behind us. As I predicted in my previous two posts about the Mayor’s race, Aftab Pureval and David Mann came out on top. Pureval was the top vote getter and I believe that’s because he’s established so many meaningful relationships since he burst onto the scene in 2016. Aftab is known for bringing the Clerk of Court’s office into the 21st Century as well as being the leading candidate for HCDP on multiple coordinated campaigns. Specifically in 2018 and in 2020, Aftab contributed greatly to the Democrat’s coordinated campaigns and you’d have to think most of the party faithful will be supporting him in this Mayor’s race. On the other hand, David Mann isn’t exactly known for helping with coordinated campaigns and only has specific candidates he intends on assisting. Moreover, he’s seeking out the city’s conservative voters and appealing to them instead of the progressives. The May 4th results look very promising for Aftab, considering he should be able to consolidate the Democratic vote and bring in most of the voters who supported Cecil Thomas, Gavi Begtrup and Raffel Prophett. I suspect David Mann will have a difficult time attracting voters of color to support him, one thing that Cranley was actually able to do. 

Close, but No Cigar

Since I’m one of those people who spends a lot of time on Twitter, I bought into the Gavi hype. I predicted he would finish third ahead of Cecil Thomas which did not happen. Name recognition was probably the biggest issue hindering Gavi’s chances, especially since this was the first time running for office and appearing on the ballot. Whether we like it or not, Cincinnati political Twitter is its own bubble and there are times where some of us forget that. Ultimately, Cecil Thomas finished third, Gavi Begtrup fourth, Raffel Prophett fifth and Herman Najoli sixth. When you run for office, you begin to form relationships and create a reputation for yourself, so running as a first-time candidate is always challenging, but it gets easier every time you do it. I would’ve liked for Begtrup, Prophett and Najoli to run for City Council over the open Mayor’s seat. Maybe in two years we will see them take that step and be more successful, but I personally have no real idea of their ambitions or plans and I’m just speculating.

Punching Down, As Always

There’s a famous saying, usually associated with sports, and it goes “act like you’ve been there before.” This advice is usually given to players and teams that win and need to show class and grace towards their opponents they defeated. Jason Williams, The Enquirer’s columnist who gets paid to spread conservative ideas in the name of journalism, clearly doesn’t know about winning gracefully or with class. Once Issue 3 failed by a margin of 73% to 26%, Jason fired off a Tweet dunking on Issue 3 supporters he defined as “Twitter Trolls from Over-the-Rhine.” In reality, over 9,000 Cincinnatians voted in support of Issue 3, the controversial ballot measure that would provide $50 million dollars of city money towards affordable housing. We knew it wouldn’t pass, especially since so many labor unions came out against it. But since Jason is from the suburbs and has no real interest in actually improving the City of Cincinnati for regular residents, taking a victory lap and dunking on poor people is par for the course. Moving on from Jason Williams, it’s time for this city to get to work on affordable housing. Councilmember Seelbach Tweeted last night that he will introduce a charter amendment raising the city’s earning tax by .01% as a dedicated funding source for affordable housing. He estimates this will bring an estimated $20 million a year just for affordable housing. Unlike Jason Williams, Chris Seelbach is using his position of power to actually put forth solutions and work to help solve the city’s affordable housing crisis. I personally did not like how Issue 3 pitted labor unions and their members against affordable housing advocates, but that was by design by the city manager and mayor. I look forward to housing advocates, labor unions and elected officials like Seelbach, Kearney and Landsman coming together to find a solution for this problem. Seelbach’s recent Tweet is a good start and gives us hope for the future, unlike Jason Williams who shows us his disdain for poor people on the regular. 

Issues 1 and 2

Issues 1 and 2 both passed and they dealt with suspending council members that have been indicted for crimes. Both are reactionary measures and don’t actually do anything to prevent corruption at City Hall. I think their impact will be very minimal, especially with a new batch of city council members coming into the fold for the 2021 cycle. Smitherman and Sundermann proposed these charter amendments, but there is plenty more that can be done to actually prevent corruption related to development. It’s unclear if either of these two actually want to put anything in place that changes the way our city handles development deals which has been the root cause of the corruption associated with City Hall. With all of that being said, I hope you enjoyed election day as much as I did and look forward to the fall when the general election graces us with its presence. 

Not only does The Enquirer publish this man-child’s opinions, they actually pay him for them.