Pictured are Cleveland Ward 1 Councilman Joe Jones and Ward 6 Councilman Blaine GriffinCLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland Ward 1 Councilman Joe Jones has endorsed Shontel Brown and Ward 6 Councilman Blaine Griffin, Nina Turner relative to the special election for Congress in Ohio's majority Black 11th congressional district, which includes Cleveland, a largely Black pocket of Akron and staggering suburbs of Cuyahoga and Summit counties.
Both Jones and Grifffin are Black.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has set the primary election for Aug. 3 and the general for Nov, 2 as there are seven declared candidates thus far who hope to replace former congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, Fudge now the secretary of Housing and Urban Development in President Joe Biden's cabinet.
Griffin is city's council's public safety committee chair and a wannabe city council president, and is a former Community Relations Board director under four-term Black mayor Frank Jackson, who has not said whether he will seek an historic fifth term as mayor this year.
Jones leads the ward with the strongest voting bloc of Black voters and the second strongest voting bloc of the city's 17 wards, the largely Black wards of which are east side wards on the majority Black major American city and the majority White wards primarily west side wards.
"We are going to support Shontel Brown 100 percent because she has been committed and dedicated to serving the community," said Jones of his endorsement of Brown.
Griffin was equally supportive of his candidate, and called Turner, also a former city councilwoman of Jones' Ward 1, a " visionary leader, fiercely committed to improving the lives of people in this community."
Each of the city's wards are comprised of roughly 23,000 residents and Cleveland has some 385,000 residents overall.
Griffin's ward consists of Fairfax, Larchmere, Little Italy, Woodland Hills, and parts of Buckeye-Shaker, University Circle, North Broadway, Slavic Village and Union-Miles, and Jones' ward Lee-Harvard, Lee-Seville, Union-Miles, and part of Mount Pleasant.
The endorsement by Griffin of Turner and by Jones of Brown furthers the racial divide, sources say.
Both Brown and Turner are considered front-runners in a hard-to-call congressional race.
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