Miller and Johnson fought hard last year over the ward 10 city council seat as Cleveland City Council saw two seats eliminated to  bring it this year from 19 to 17

members per a voter adopted charter amendment and controversial council redistricting map. Rep. Patmon backed Johnson in the close Ward 10 race and Jackson and then City Councilman President Martin Sweeney, still a councilman and a candidate for the open state legislative district 14 seat on Cleveland's largely White west side, supported Miller, who lost to Johnson.

Conwell is Black like most of the city's east side council members. Polensek is  a White east side councilman who represents parts of the Collinwood area, and he is the most seasoned councilperson of the largely Black major American city.

State legislators make state laws, and city council persons adopt city ordinances. The 11-member Cuyahoga County Council works in cooperation with the county executive relative to public policy initiatives.

The powerful county executive, pursuant to a new governance structure approved by voters in 2009 that eliminated a three-member county board of commissioners and elected county offices other than the judges, also hires and fires the once elected county sheriff, coroner, fiscal officer, clerk of courts , and treasurer. Black leaders and politicians opposed the new governance plan, all but state Sen. Nina Turner, who caught all out hell from some Black leaders like former Cleveland NAACP President George Forbes and the Call and Post Newspaper, Ohio's Black press with distributions in Cleveland Columbus and Cincinnati. Ed FitzGerald, the Democratic candidate for Ohio governor this year in a likely runoff against incumbent Gov John Kasich, a Republican, is the current county executive. He beat Republican Matt Dolan in 2010 and is the county's first chief executive.

Incumbent state Rep. John Barnes Jr. (D-12), a Black Cleveland Democrat, faces Democratic challenger Jill Miller Zimon, a  member of the city council of the upper middle class Pepper Pike, Ohio, one of several suburbs in Barnes' newly redrawn largely majority Black 12th state House district. The new district stretches from the majority Black Cleveland Ward 1 in the west, south through Maple Heights, Bedford and Bedford Heights, east through Warrensville Heights, North Randall and Highland Hills, and finally north through Orange, Pepper Pike and Mayfield Heights.

Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Anita Laster Mays, who is Black, stands out among judicial candidates, having snagged the county Democratic party endorsement over Brian Corrigan, a common pleas judge who pleaded guilty to DUI last year, for an open seat on the Ohio Eighth District Court of Appeals.