CINCINNATI — Former Cincinnati mayor John Cranley will not run for Hamilton County prosecutor in 2024, meaning Democrats will have to find a new challenger for Republican Melissa Powers.
“After careful consideration and consultation with my wife and son – who will begin high school in August – I have decided that I will not be a candidate,” Cranley said on Tuesday. “Public service has been a calling and serving as mayor was the greatest professional honor of my life. I hope to engage in public service again in the future, but for now I am greatly enjoying my legal work, spending quality time with my family and serving on the Board of Advocates for the Ohio Innocence Project.”
An attorney, Cranley had been thinking about running for the high-profile prosecutor job for several months. He spent nearly 20 years at City Hall, first as a council member and then as mayor. He was term-limited from running for mayor again and his tenure ended on Jan. 4, 2022.
With Cranley out of the running, the Democratic Party may be looking to former Ohio Rep. Connie Pillich to run against Powers. Pillich said she is thinking about it.
Pillich served as state representative from 2009 to 2014 and is a U.S. Air Force veteran, which makes her a well-known name in Ohio politics and could help with fundraising.
The Hamilton County prosecutor’s race could get national attention and draw outside money for advertising, said University of Cincinnati political science professor David Niven in a March interview with WCPO.
“I think we've seen in the last couple of years increasing national interest in the outcome of prosecutors' races, from both sides because frankly, there's just so much at stake,” Niven said. “A prosecutor's office is one of the most powerful jobs in all of American politics.”
Powers took over as the county’s top prosecutor in January 2023, moving into the same office that her brash, larger-than-life predecessor Joe Deters occupied for a generation.
The county's Republican Party tapped Powers to take over for Deters, when Gov. Mike DeWine appointed him to the Ohio Supreme Court. The GOP hopes she can preserve this prestigious stronghold office in the 2024 election against a rising tide of blue voters.
Powers certainly has the experience for the job with a courthouse career as trial prosecutor, lawyer in private practice, and as a judge in juvenile and municipal courts.
But Hamilton County is turning increasing blue, and Democratic.
Like urban areas across Ohio, Democrats now control the vast majority of elected power in Cincinnati and Hamilton County after picking off seats that were once controlled by Republicans in each election cycle.
For her part, Powers acknowledged that she faces a difficult election next year during a March interview with WCPO.
“But it’s an election that I think I will win. I’m confident that no one will outwork me as a candidate,” Powers said in March.
On Tuesday Powers said, "This race has never been about who my opponent is. It's about fighting for the future of the city and county that I love. I'm working hard to get violent criminals off our streets, clean up our neighborhoods, and protect victims and their families. If we want to maintain the identity we have forged, we need to hold dangerous people accountable and reject these soft-on-crime policies that have overtaken urban areas across the country."
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