Blaine Griffin has decided not to challenge Mayor Justin Bibb in this year’s election.
Instead, the Cleveland City Council president will run for a third full term representing Ward 6, he told Signal Cleveland on Thursday. Griffin dropped the news first during an interview on WTAM 1100.
Griffin, who passed on running for mayor in 2021, had previously declined to say whether he would run against Bibb in 2025. He polled his mayoral chances earlier this year and decided last week to run again for his council seat, he said.
“After talking with family and friends, it was just something that just didn’t feel right,” he said in a phone interview with Signal Cleveland.
The poll showed that Griffin had a “path” to challenging Bibb, the council president said. But it also led him to believe that he would need to raise more money to improve his citywide name recognition, he said. He declined to share numbers from the poll.
Ultimately it was not the poll results but a gut feeling that led him to decide against a mayoral run, he said. Griffin said there is still work he’d like to do in Ward 6 and on City Council.
“At the end of the day, after weighing all the information and doing a lot of praying, soul searching and conversations with the family, I ended up saying, ‘Hey, I’ll leave it alone,’” he said.
As council president, Griffin has worked alongside Bibb on such major projects as spending American Rescue Plan Act dollars and establishing a tax-increment financing district for downtown development. He has also pushed back on the mayor at times, for instance by setting aside money for local ward projects in this year’s budget.
Griffin’s decision removes one bigger-name potential Bibb challenger from the mix. Nina Turner, the former state senator who said she was thinking about a mayoral run, has not yet said whether she will seek the job.
Several other possible mayoral candidates have told the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections that they intend to circulate petitions to get on the ballot, including Republican candidate Laverne Jones Gore.
The deadline to file to run for mayoral and council seats is June 11.
Newly elected or reelected City Council members typically vote for a council president shortly after Election Day in November. Griffin said that a “tremendous” portion of the current council wanted to see him as president again. But he also said that he was waiting to see whether the newly elected council aligned with his own moderate political views.
Asked whether he would consider running for mayor in 2029, Griffin replied, “Nothing is forever.”
