Vice President JD Vance’s half-brother, Cory Bowman, advanced to the general election in the Cincinnati mayoral race after receiving around 12.9% of the vote against incumbent mayor Aftab Pureval’s 82.5%.
Bowman finished second in the nonpartisan open primary, which also featured Republican Brian Patrick Frank.
Vance had endorsed his brother hours before polls closed on Tuesday. “Hey Cincinnati! My brother Cory Bowman is running for mayor and is on the ballot today for the primary. He’s a good guy with a heart for serving his community. Get out there and vote for him!” he wrote in a post on X.
The 36-year-old Bowman is focusing on infrastructure in his race against Pureval, who won his first election as mayor easily against a fellow Democrat 65.8%-34.3%.
“When you see the roads, when you see the infrastructure, when you see our snow plows that are kind of not in perfect position, when you see even like our police cruisers that need to be updated … whether it be for good intention or not, we’re seeing that the priorities haven’t been the streets,” Bowman told WCPO before the primary.
Bowman is unlikely to win in the heavily blue city, which hasn’t elected a Republican in decades. With Bowman advancing to the general election, he became the first Republican since 2009 to do so.
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Vance’s half-brother has never held political office but is a pastor and business owner.
Bowman has cited Vance’s political success as the reason he’s running for mayor. Critics of his campaign told Politico that he’s only running to raise his national profile.