For the first time in 20 years, Hamilton County voters won't see Joe Deters' name on the November ballot for prosecutor.
He was appointed to the Ohio Supreme Court last year, opening up the post to two new candidates: Appointed Republican Prosecutor Melissa Powers , who has held the seat since January of 2023 and Democrat Connie Pillich , a former state representative.
Whoever wins will be the first elected female prosecutor in the county. But what political watchers are really eyeing is whether a Republican can retain the seat in Ohio's third-largest urban county – a county that gets more blue every election cycle.
Powers has been a judge and assistant prosecutor, and by the time election day arrives will have held the top job for almost two years.
But Hamilton County has become a reliably blue county − all nine Cincinnati City Council members and all three county commissioners are Democrats. President Biden won the county by 16 percentage points over Donald Trump in 2020.
So far, voters have been reluctant to hand the prosecutor's office to a Democrat, even as they've done so in Ohio's larger urban counties.
In fact, the last time the prosecutor's office was led by a Democrat was 1932, Robert N. Gorman's final year as prosecutor. Gorman ran as part of the Citizens' ticket, but candidates were endorsed by the Democratic Party. Gorman later was elected as a Democrat to the Ohio Supreme Court.
Hamilton County voters are about to weigh in.
Why is the prosecutor's race so important?
"This is one of those offices that is so incredibly important and doesn't get nearly the attention the consequences of the decisions a prosecutor makes deserves," said David Niven, a University of Cincinnati professor who studies political campaigns. "Prosecutors are literally changing lives, deciding the direction the judicial system should lean, toward redemption or revenge."
Niven said anyone trying to predict what happens in the race should look to Franklin County and Cuyahoga County, the only larger urban cities in the state.
In 2020, Franklin County voters ousted Republican prosecutor Ron O'Brien . The Democratic candidate, retired 10th District Court of Appeals Judge Gary Tyack, was recovering from a stroke when voters made the change. O'Brien had been a prosecutor for 24 years, the longest-serving Franklin County prosecutor in history.
Cuyahoga County voters this November are set to reelect Democrat Michael O’Malley to a third term as prosecutor. He's running unopposed.
"The era has passed when a Republican can hold the prosecutor seat in urban counties," Niven said. "This is a really critical race for Republicans. If they can’t hold it, it's time to buy the white flags and surrender."
There's no question Powers is aware how difficult it will be to retain the seat. According to post-primary campaign finance reports, which ran from Feb. 28 to April 19, Powers had $1.2 million on hand; Pillich, $232,378. They've been busy raising money since April, but new reports aren't due to the Hamilton County Board of Elections until Oct. 31.
"You never win just because you have money," Niven said. "You can make a better case that you lose because you don’t have money. But you don’t win because you have money. Prosecutor Powers is trying to buy her way out of a rising tide against her. She is trying to stop the passage of time, but that is a tough thing to buy."
Who is Melissa Powers?
Age: 63.
Education: Bachelor’s degree from the University of Cincinnati, law degree from the University of Cincinnati's College of Law.
Powers describes herself as a shy, Catholic girl from Mount Airy, who went to law school seeking more financial stability after majoring in art education as an undergraduate.
She began her legal career in the 1990s in the same office she now runs. She served as an assistant prosecutor from 1991 until 1998, when she went into private practice.
During her tenure in the prosecutor's office, she received international recognition after traveling to Missouri’s death row in 1997 and getting a serial killer to admit to several unsolved killings, including the fatal shooting of two Black teens in Bond Hill.
In 2006, Powers was appointed to a seat on Hamilton County Municipal Court, where she served for 10 years. She then spent six years as a juvenile court judge. In January 2023, she was appointed prosecutor after Joe Deters was sworn in as an Ohio Supreme Court justice.
Powers said she is by far the more experienced candidate. Pillich, she said, hasn’t handled a criminal case in Hamilton County since the mid-2000s. Court records show that Pillich in 2008 represented a man charged with carrying a concealed weapon − her only felony case that year. The case went to trial, and the man was acquitted. Pillich has handled civil cases in the county through 2022, according to court records.
If elected to a full, four-year term, Powers said that among her initiatives will be expanding the office's victim advocate program which focuses on "helping victims heal," increasing the number of attorneys who handle felony cases and continuing to focus on violent crime.
“If you’re not relentlessly focused on getting violent people off the streets, you’re not doing your job,” she said. “I’m not afraid to say that certain people can’t be rehabilitated. The only thing you can do is put them away for as long as possible to keep the community safe.”
Who is Connie Pillich?
Age: 64.
Education: Bachelor’s degree from the University of Oklahoma, Master of Business Administration from the University of North Dakota, law degree from the University of Cincinnati's College of Law.
Pillich has never worked as a prosecutor, although she says her decision to go to law school was motivated by a desire to help make the world safer. The seed was planted in 1991, the same year she finished eight years of service in the U.S. Air Force. She was mugged after leaving a church meeting. Two days later, she had a miscarriage.
"I decided I wanted to do something to make the world safer," she said.
She earned her law degree in 1998 from UC's College of Law. She said she applied for a job with the Hamilton County Prosecutor's Office but wasn't hired. She said the fact that she was a Democrat seeking to work in a Republican-dominated office didn't help.
She went into private practice and by the mid-2000s opened a law firm with another attorney. She handled cases in areas including employment discrimination, business development, predatory lending, consumer protection and estate planning. She also handled some criminal cases as a court-appointed attorney for defendants who couldn't afford one.
Pillich said that the banks she sued to save her clients' homes know that she can prosecute a case, "as do the corporations who wrongfully terminated the employment of my clients."
She now heads the Pillich Group, which has done consulting for nonprofits, educational institutions and small businesses.
In 2008, she was elected a state representative and served six years. She ran unsuccessfully for state treasurer in 2014 and four years later announced a run for governor before dropping out of the race. Most recently, she ran in the 2020 Democratic primary for Hamilton County commissioner but lost to Alicia Reece.
Pillich is well aware that some employees are concerned about what would happen if she takes control of the office. Her ideas for the office − which include starting a program to audit convictions, creating an ethics department and upgrading technology − don't include replacing staff.
She said she's going to draw on her military experience. The best commanders she had in the Air Force, she said, didn't come into a new situation and make massive changes immediately. Instead, they spoke with the people already there "and watched an learned before they started making changes."
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Hamilton County prosecutor's race: Will Democrat end nearly a century of GOP control?
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