Aftab Pureval

Aftab Karma Singh Pureval (born September 9, 1982) is an American attorney and politician serving as the 70th mayor of Cincinnati since 2022. A a member of the Democratic Party, he was previously the clerk of courts of Hamilton County, Ohio, from 2017 to 2022. He was an unsuccessful candidate for in 2018, losing the election to Republican incumbent Steve Chabot. Pureval was elected mayor in 2021 and was reelected in 2025. He is the first Asian American to be elected as mayor of Cincinnati.

Early life and education Aftab Karma Singh Pureval was born on September 9, 1982, in Xenia, Ohio. When he was four years old, his family moved to nearby Beavercreek. His parents were both immigrants; his Punjabi father Devinder Singh Pureval came from India, and his mother Drenko was a refugee from Tibet. He has one brother named Avid. He was noted to have political ambitions from a young age; he won his first student government election in eighth grade running with the slogan "Big, Brown and Beautiful." Running for class president as senior at Beavercreek High School, he faced anti-immigrant rhetoric when his opponent used the slogan "Vote for the American candidate." He said he was "shocked" at the time, but he won the race. He graduated from Ohio State in Spring 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science.

In 2005, he enrolled at University of Cincinnati College of Law, where he served as editor of the university's law review journal while working at the Warren County Domestic Relations Court. He ultimately earned his Juris Doctor in 2008.

Early career In September 2008, Pureval moved to Washington, D.C., to start as an associate at White & Case LLP, where he worked for four years in the area of anti-trust litigation. He returned to Hamilton County, Ohio, in September 2012 to work as a special assistant U.S. attorney for the United States Department of Justice. According to his website, he was the global brand attorney for Olay. He worked at P&G for over three years before taking a six-month leave of absence and ultimately departing the company to begin his political career. His opponent, Tracy Winkler, was a well-known incumbent from a family prominent in local politics. However, Pureval raised significantly more in campaign funding—by mid-summer, he had raised $210,000 to Winkler's $70,000—and began to receive significant press coverage. Shortly after being elected, Pureval resigned from his counsel position at Procter & Gamble, citing a desire to focus on his clerk position full-time.

Pureval officially took office on January 3, 2017, and immediately made significant reforms and reductions to the office. He told the Cincinnati Business Courier, "It's not downsizing. We're taking a look at the current talent in our office and making changes where we think they are necessary."

In May 2017, Pureval's office relaunched the clerk of courts website, adding support for mobile devices. In July 2017, Pureval announced new policies regarding his office's workers. All workers would now be paid no less than $16 per hour and would be able to receive pay during extended absences to care for newborns or sick relatives. He also implemented protections against discrimination for LGBTQ workers. Pureval also established a help center staffed by volunteers from the University of Cincinnati College of Law.

On November 3, 2020, Pureval was re-elected as the clerk of courts, winning 57.3% of the vote over Republican contender Alex Glandorf.

Congressional campaign

After his successful election to the clerk of courts position, local news commentators and political insiders speculated that Pureval would run for a higher office. Ohio Democratic Party chair David Pepper called Pureval "one of our rising young stars". Republican incumbent Steve Chabot had been the district's representative almost continuously since 1995. thumb In January 2018, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that Pureval was being recruited by the DCCC to run against Chabot in the 2018 election. Pureval officially announced his candidacy via a press conference on January 31. His main Democratic opponent, Robert Barr, dropped out of the race and endorsed Pureval.

On the night of February 5, five days after his candidacy announcement, Pureval filed a police report alleging that his fiancée was being stalked at his Hyde Park house. According to the report, "unknown suspects" had been "sitting outside the victim's house at all hours of the day, attempting to photograph victim, and have come onto the victim's property banging loudly on the door, yelling at the victim and attempting to photograph through the windows." Rizutto strongly denied that the Chabot campaign was involved with the incidents, telling reporters, "No campaign in their right mind would engage in that kind of behavior." He said that campaign personnel hadn't visited the house since a week prior, although some reporters noted inconsistencies in his story about how many people were there and when. In March, the DCCC announced Pureval was one of nine new candidates in their "Red to Blue" program, meaning his campaign would receive additional support from the committee. On March 22, Pureval's campaign was endorsed by ASPIRE PAC.

In the first quarter of 2018, FEC filing records indicated that Pureval's campaign had raised $664,347 whereas Chabot's campaign had raised $171,335. On May 8, Pureval officially became the Democratic candidate for Ohio's first district after winning an unopposed primary race. On May 11, Pureval was endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign. On July 24, Sabato's Crystal Ball revised their rating for the district again, declaring it a toss-up. On August 1, Pureval was one of 81 candidates endorsed by former president Barack Obama.

A report in The Cincinnati Enquirer on August 2 noted that Pureval had spent $30,000 of funds from his clerk of courts campaign account in the first six months of 2018, and suggested that use of the funds for his federal campaign may be a violation of election laws. In a public statement, Pureval's legal counsel denied wrongdoing and claimed the FEC had rejected allegations of this sort.

Pureval ultimately lost the election to Chabot, earning 46.4% of the vote to Chabot's 51.8%.

Mayor of Cincinnati

On January 14, 2021, Pureval declared his candidacy in the 2021 Cincinnati mayoral election. In the primary election held on May 4, 2021, he was the top vote getter with 39% of the votes in a field of six candidates. On November 2, 2021, Pureval defeated Democratic contender and former mayor David S. Mann with 66% of the vote, and became the first Asian American mayor in the city's history.

In February 2022, Pureval and the city council announced a plan to add $5 million and $1 million per year to a fund for affordable housing. In March 2022, Cincinnati's city hall raised the transgender flag for the first time.

In October 2023, he condemned the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel. In February 2024, Pureval said he doesn't believe the city should take up a resolution for a ceasefire in the Gaza war. Some residents of Cincinnati saw a lack of resolution calling for Gaza war ceasefire as a double standard, given the swift condemnation of the October 7 attacks. He won the primary election held on May 6, 2025, with over 82% of the vote. He was given a vote of no confidence by the local police union in August of 2025, primarily in response to a violent incident that occurred in downtown Cincinnati on July 26. Pureval faced Republican Cory Bowman, a half-brother of Vice-President JD Vance, in the general election on November 4, 2025, and won by a margin of 78% to 22%.

Personal life Pureval lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his wife Whitney Whitis. They became engaged on April 13, 2017, and were married on May 26, 2018. Whitis is an internal medicine doctor at Bethesda North Hospital and an alumna of the Ohio State University. They have two sons: Bodhi, who was born in 2019, and Rami, who was born in 2022.

He formerly lived in a house in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Cincinnati that he bought in 2015. In January 2018, he said that he had recently moved to Downtown Cincinnati. As of 2021, he lived in Clifton. Pureval is an amateur photographer. He also co-owns the Nation Kitchen & Bar in the Pendleton neighborhood of Cincinnati.

Electoral history