CINCINNATI, April 23, (AP): Cory Bowman was feeling inspired in January as he headed home after watching his half-brother, JD Vance, be inaugurated as vice president. The 36-year-old Bowman, who shares a father with Vance, was already active in the community, starting an evangelical church in Cincinnati’s West End and later opening a coffee shop. But he hadn’t thought politics was his calling.

Now, suddenly, he did. He decided to launch a campaign for mayor. "There was nobody that pushed me into it, nobody that told me that this is a pathway I should go,” he said in an interview one recent morning. "But I just thought this would be a great way to help impact the city in another realm as well, because that’s always been the focus.”

Were he to pull an upset in this predominantly Democratic city, Bowman would be the latest family member of a president or vice president to serve in office. That includes the brother of Mike Pence, Trump’s first vice president, elected to Congress during their previous administration. In this case, however, Bowman says his run isn’t tied to national politics as much as a desire to improve the city. "What I want to run as is I’m somebody that deeply loves Cincinnati," Bowman said. "I do have a background in economics, statistics and administration, and so I can kind of see certain things with the city that we can do better at.”

Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval, who is seeking reelection, is viewed as a rising star within the Democratic Party. Pureval, 42, is a lawyer and former special assistant US attorney who previously served as Hamilton County Clerk of Courts and ran for Congress. He won the 2021 mayor's race in Ohio's third largest city with nearly 66% of the vote. 

Bowman, a Republican, said he chose to run for mayor partly because it was the seat most immediately up for grabs and partly because it bothered him that Pureval was running unopposed. Another GOP candidate - procurement professional Brian Frank, 66 - jumped into the race around that same time for the same reason, setting up a three-way primary next month. Cincinnati mayoral races are nonpartisan, so the top two vote-getters on May 6 will face each other in November. "I think it’s fantastic that I’m not running unopposed,” Pureval said, saying he believes it's important for Cincinnati voters to have different visions from which to choose.