COLUMBUS, Ohio — Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval faces two challengers Tuesday in the city’s nonpartisan primary, including Vice President JD Vance’s half brother.
The top two vote-getters in the contest to lead Ohio’s third-largest city will go on to compete in November’s general election.
Cory Bowman, Vance’s half brother, is an evangelical pastor and coffee shop owner. Neither he nor fellow Republican challenger Brian Frank, a procurement professional, have held public office before but said they didn’t want to see the incumbent Democrat’s reelection bid go unchallenged in the heavily Democratic city.
Were Bowman to pull an upset, he would be the latest family member of a president or vice president to serve in office. That includes the brother of Mike Pence, President Donald Trump’s first vice president, who was elected to Congress during Trump’s previous administration.
Bowman, 36, has said that he wants to improve his city, not get involved in national politics. He says his half brother’s inauguration in January inspired him to get involved in politics, but that Vance is just his brother, not his political counselor.
Pureval is viewed as a Democratic up-and-comer. A former special assistant U.S. attorney, congressional candidate and Hamilton County clerk of courts, the 42-year-old won the 2021 mayor’s race with nearly 66% of the vote.
Perennially low turnout in Cincinnati’s off-year mayoral primaries has led to surprising results for some candidates who were favored going in. Democrat John Cranley, a former City Council member, topped a former mayor of the city, Roxanne Qualls, in the 2013 mayoral primary, and parlayed the momentum into a win that fall. Four years later, Cranley came in second in the primary to Yvette Simpson, then a member of City Council. The incumbent mayor nonetheless won reelection that fall.
Voters in Cincinnati and across Ohio will also be voting Tuesday on State Issue 2. It seeks to reauthorize a program that would provide $2.5 billion for roads, bridges and other needed local infrastructure projects over the next decade.
