As expected, Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval kicked off a bid against GOP Rep. Steve Chabot in Ohio’s 1st Congressional District on Wednesday, and he immediately earned the endorsement of another Democrat who'd been recruited to run here, Cincinnati City Councilor P.G. Sittenfeld. While this Cincinnati-based district leans decidedly Republican (it voted for Donald Trump by a 51-45 margin), Pureval has all the hallmarks of a strong candidate and should be able to put this seat in play.
In 2016, Pureval dramatically upset what a local news station called "one of the best-known names in Hamilton County politics" when he edged out Republican incumbent Tracy Winkler 52-48 to win his current post. That made Pureval, the son of Indian and Tibetan immigrants, the first Democrat to get elected as clerk of courts in Hamilton County in over a century and earned him a reputation as a hard-working campaigner. (He also ran goofy but catchy ads with a puppet duck that called out AF-TAB—you know, like AFLAC.)
One potential difficulty for Pureval, though, is that he lives just outside the 1st District. However, there's a smart, ready-made way he can push back: The only reason Pureval's neighborhood of Hyde Park is in the neighboring 2nd District is because Republicans ruthlessly gerrymandered Ohio and deliberately split the city of Cincinnati to create two Republican districts—you can see for yourself right here.
But under any reasonable nonpartisan map, such as this proposal from Stephen Wolf, Cincinnati and almost all of Hamilton County would be united in a single district. Such a district, however, would lean decidedly toward Democrats, which of course is why Republicans didn't draw one that way in the first place. Pureval won his race for clerk of courts by campaigning in favor of good government, so it should be easy for him to make a similar argument in support of redistricting reform now, especially given the growing national outcry against partisan gerrymandering.
Pureval also faces a primary with Rabbi Robert Barr, who would be the first rabbi ever to serve in Congress were he to win. However, while Barr has raised a decent sum of money, Pureval's name recognition and political networks should give him a big advantage in winning the nomination.