After yet another Democratic sweep of all nine Cincinnati City Council seats, it’s not clear when a Charter Committee or Republican candidate might make it back to City Hall.
Charter Committee convener Steve Goodin says their slate of candidates for City Council, which included himself and four others, focused on local problems and solutions. But he says it wasn't enough to overcome the Democrats' messaging to "Keep MAGA out of Cincinnati," starting with Republican mayoral challenger Cory Bowman.
"They sort of used Cory Bowman as an excuse to paint everybody who disagreed with them as being MAGA," Goodin told WVXU. "And as we saw, there was a blue wave nationwide. It carried over into the county races, the township races. We saw a nationwide response to Trump's policies. So it was like an early midterm election that impacted the municipal races."
The Charter Committee formed just over a hundred years ago to address widespread corruption in city politics. Although often described as Cincinnati's third political party, Goodin says Charter has always endeavored to be nonpartisan. The Charter Committee slate this year included both Republicans and Democrats; Goodin says none support Donald Trump or his policies.
Looking ahead, Goodin says there’s one issue the Charter Committee is likely to advocate for.
"I think the bulk of our energy in the short term is going to go into looking at putting ranked choice voting back on the ballot," he said.
Cincinnati had a version of ranked choice voting for about 30 years until 1955. The switch away from that system was, at least in part, an effort to keep a Black man from becoming mayor.
An effort to bring back proportional representation was on the ballot in 2008. It failed with only about 47% support, a difference of about 6,700 votes.
Goodin says he knows it would be an uphill battle.
"We expect a strong, strong opposition from both local political parties," he said.
Plus, opposition from both parties at the Statehouse, where the Senate has passed a bipartisan bill to effectively ban ranked choice voting in Ohio. The bill is now in committee in the Ohio House.
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