Mayoral Race Check-In
We are roughly 10 days out from the Cincinnati May 4th Mayoral Primary and things are coming down to the wire. The six mayoral candidates submitted their campaign finance reports on April 22nd and it gives us an inside look at how much money each candidate has raised heading into the Primary. As of April 22nd, here are the financials for each candidate:
· Aftab Pureval – Raised $230,961 since Jan. 1. Spent $275,055, with $110,833 still available.
· Gavi Begtrup – Raised $98,502 since Jan. 1. Spent $17,348, with $130,858 still available.
· David Mann – Raised $55,895 since Jan. 1. Spent $47,604, with $82,455 still available.
· Raffel Prophett – Raised $44,624 since Jan. 1. Spent $40,840, with $21,642 available.
· Cecil Thomas – Raised $27,565 since Jan. 1. Spent $18,566, with $24,354 still available.
· Herman Najoli – Raised $1,350 since Jan. 1. Spent $927, with $458 still available.
Gavi Begtrup has made waves on the campaign trail and is now making waves on the fundraising front as well. He formerly worked as an aide to Congress woman Gabby Giffords and he seems to be tapping into many of the connections he made during his time in Washington DC. Additionally, his fundraising totals are equally impressive considering he pledged to not accept any campaign donations from developers. In my first blog post about this mayoral race, I highlighted Raffel Prophett as the possible dark horse, but that title now most likely belongs to Gavi. Regardless, Aftab is still at the top of the list in terms of money raised and he’s spent more than anyone. If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on Aftab advancing to the general election. His staff is robust and he has a lot of hardened campaign veterans working for him.
Who Will Advance?
As I previously mentioned, Aftab is a safe bet to advance. However, predicting the second candidate to advance is difficult. In the 2017 Mayoral primary, Yvette Simpson shocked the world and was the top vote getter. She is a progressive champion and had excellent turnout in the 2017 primary. However, there were only three candidates participating in that race in 2017. The progressive vote will most likely be split in some way between Aftab and Gavi. Traditional Democratic voters who may not consider themselves as Progressives may take a hard look at all of the candidates. Other than Aftab, the names that will pop out at them are Cecil Thomas and David Mann since they both have had long careers in elected office and their name ID is strong.
Reading Between the Lines
There have been a few curious occurrences that have sprung up within the past few weeks. The first being that David Mann has taken it upon himself to run with the Cranley playbook. That means appealing to the Republicans and moderates that live within the city limits as well as rely on some Democratic support. This strategy put Cranley over the top, especially in 2013 when he was endorsed by COAST and was on a crusade to derail the streetcar. David Mann posted pictures on his Facebook announcing that Republicans Betsy Sundermann, Steve Goodin and Liz Keating have endorsed him. In addition to that, he also posted the same picture with fake Independent Chris Smitherman. Smitherman swears up and down that he isn’t a Republican despite voting in a Republican primary in 2016 and being a key-note speaker at a holiday COAST event several years back. I assumed David Mann was Cranley’s pick as well, but that changed when Jason Williams at The Enquirer wrote this piece on Cecil Thomas. For anyone that follows Jason Williams, it’s evident that Cranley is one of his main sources that he gets information from and often goes out of his way to carry water for the mayor. Williams wrote an entire piece about Cecil Thomas and how “insiders” at City Hall believe he might be the right pick for mayor. Ok, that’s all fine and good and he’s surely a well-qualified candidate, any local Democrat would agree with that. But here’s the key takeaway from Williams’ piece which was the major red flag and was sending a direct message to Cecil Thomas himself, presumably from our mayor: “Insiders tell me they believe Thomas could be an effective mayor if he hires an experienced and pragmatic city manager, someone who is particularly adept with the budget and economic development. Some have suggested to Thomas that, if elected, he should retain current City Manager Paula Boggs Muething. The former city solicitor is doing a good job guiding the city through the budget-crushing pandemic.”
Reading between the lines, here is what I presume is happening: David Mann may have been non-committal about retaining Paula Boggs Muething or even told Cranley he would not retain her if he were to win the general election. Cranley, being the sly dog that he is, tells Jason Williams all about how maybe Cecil Thomas is worth a second look but only if he retains PBM, who’s a very close friend to the mayor. This quote from Williams’ piece is the mayor extending the proverbial olive branch to Cecil Thomas as the mayoral primary approaches. Anyone who knows the mayor knows that he likes to cover all of his bases. David Mann has bucked the mayor plenty of times before and he’s definitely not someone who I would consider to be controlled by anyone.
Prediction
As the primary comes to a head, I suppose I will predict the order of which the candidates will finish. I’m fairly bullish on the general election being David Mann and Aftab Pureval, but Gavi Begtrup will surprise people.
1. Aftab Pureval
2. David Mann
3. Gavi Begtrup
4. Cecil Thomas
5. Raffel Prophett
6. Herman Najoli
The Cincinnati mayoral primary is weird, as 2017 showed. Turnout will be abysmal and will most likely land somewhere between 11-14%. Issue 3 may drive out turnout a bit more than in 2017. But if there’s anything I know, Progressive Democrats will turnout for candidates they like and that means good things for Aftab and Gavi. It’s been hard for me to gauge the energy and excitement behind Cecil Thomas and Raffel Prophett, but I am a pretty big fan of Prophett. I would’ve loved for him to run for City Council because he would’ve been an excellent candidate given his long history of public service. As for Herman Najoli, he is one of nicest people you’ll ever meet. Sadly, being an independent is difficult and my advice to him would be to embrace one party (most likely the Democratic Party) and forget about running as an Independent. Partisan politics rule the day weather we like it or not. Thanks for reading.