JD Vance’s half-brother advances in his uphill quest to become Cincinnati’s mayor

When Cincinnati residents head to the polls this November to vote for their next mayor, they will have two choices: the Democratic-aligned incumbent and a GOP-backed newcomer who happens to be the half-brother of Vice President Vance.

Cory Bowman shares a father with Vance and credits the vice president with inspiring his foray into politics.

He came in second in Tuesday’s primary, winning 12.91% of the vote behind Mayor Aftab Pureval’s 82.53%. The two beat a third candidate, Republican Brian Frank, to advance to the general election this fall.

Pureval hopes to cruise to a second term in the Democratic stronghold after easily winning the 2021 election. He was poised to run unopposed until early February, when Frank and Bowman jumped into the race.

Bowman’s campaign website says he was inspired to launch his mayoral bid after Vance’s inauguration in January, “an event he cheered with immense pride.”

“There was nobody that pushed me into it, nobody that told me that this is a pathway I should go,” Bowman told the Associated Press in April. “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.”

Bowman, 36, is the founding co-pastor of a local nondenominational evangelical church, and co-owns a coffee shop in the same neighborhood, along with his wife Jordan. His main campaign priorities include money management, increasing public safety, improving infrastructure, lowering property taxes and protecting children, including “safeguarding the unborn.”

While Bowman has called Vance an “incredible role model,” he has also stressed that his half-brother is “not a political counselor to me.” And he acknowledges the differences in scale.

“I need people to see that — that our job isn’t to copy and paste what’s going on in the nation,” Bowman said Tuesday, according to member station WVXU. “Our job is to say, however the nation’s going, what’s going to be best for the city of Cincinnati?”

Bowman’s relationship with Vance

Vance didn’t publicly acknowledge his half-brother’s campaign until Tuesday, when he endorsed him in a tweet just hours before polls closed.

“My brother Cory Bowman is running for mayor and is on the ballot today for the primary,” Vance wrote. “He’s a good guy with a heart for serving his community. Get out there and vote for him!”

Vance and Bowman have the same father, Donald Bowman, who died in 2023. But they did not grow up together: Vance was raised by his mother’s side of the family and didn’t have a relationship with his biological dad.

After Vance’s mother remarried, she changed his last name from Bowman to Hamel. Years later, he changed it again, to Vance — the last name of his maternal grandparents, who raised him.

The half-brothers both grew up in Ohio: Vance in Middletown, and Bowman on a farm outside of Hamilton, about 20 miles from Cincinnati.

Bowman has said that he met Vance — who is four years older — as a teenager, and fondly remembers playing basketball together. He said their bond strengthened over the years, in part because they both went to college in Ohio, got married and became parents around the same time.

Bowman graduated from Miami University in Ohio, then studied the ministry at River University in Tampa, Fla. That’s where he met his now-wife, Jordan. They have three children, with a fourth due this summer.

Bowman moved to Cincinnati around 2020, the AP reports. Bowman’s campaign website says he felt “a call to return to his roots.” While critics have seized on Bowman’s relatively short residency in the city, he says he’s always called it home.

“I truly believe this is the greatest city on the face of the earth,” he tweeted in February. “I may be biased. Maybe because … I grew up here. My greatest memories are here. My favorite food is here … the best people in the world are here.”

Bowman faces an uphill electoral battle 

Bowman and his Republican-affiliated primary opponent Brian Frank were the first Republicans to enter Cincinnati’s mayoral race in 16 years.

The last to do so was Brad Wenstrup in 2009, who won a U.S. House seat several years later.

While the race is technically nonpartisan — meaning candidates are listed on the ballot without any party affiliation — Cincinnati hasn’t had a Republican-aligned mayor in decades. Voters elected an all-Democrat, nine-member City Council in the last election in 2023.

While President Trump won Ohio by more than 10 percentage points in November, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris outperformed him in Hamilton County, home of Cincinnati. She won over 56% of the county’s vote, compared to Trump’s 42%.

Bowman seemed to embrace the challenge ahead in social media posts celebrating his victory on Tuesday.

“The greatest gift local government can offer its residents is a choice,” he wrote. “That’s exactly what voters will have this November.”