O’Connor defeats Gainey to win Pittsburgh’s Democratic mayoral primary

The Democratic primary pitted Pittsburgh’s first Black mayor against a popular elected official whose father led the city nearly two decades ago. Second-time candidate Tony Moreno won the Republican nod.

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by Charlie Wolfson, Maddy Franklin and Ember Duke, PublicSource

Corey O’Connor, a longtime city and county elected official, East End resident and the son of Pittsburgh’s 58th mayor, has the inside track to be the city’s 62nd mayor after winning the Democratic primary Tuesday.

The Associated Press called the race at 10:05 p.m. on Tuesday evening, with O’Connor more than 4,000 votes ahead and 80% of the votes counted. By 11 p.m. O’Connor had 53% of the tally, with 96% of votes counted.

 

He pulled off a rare defeat of a sitting mayor, denying Ed Gainey a second term after pummeling him with more than $1 million worth of mostly negative advertisements leading up to the vote. “Pittsburgh deserves better,” O’Connor declared in December, and proceeded to scathe Gainey’s handling of city finances, police leadership and economic development during more than three years in the office.

Flanked by supporters chanting his name, O’Connor declared that “we are going to win in the fall.” He echoed his campaign promises of enhancing the city’s police force, delivering affordable housing for all and supporting businesses of “all sizes.” 

At the center of his address was the idea of pushing Pittsburgh into an era of growth, via a strategy that would begin with families first. He also said a “neighborhood-oriented” approach was necessary. This would mean investing in the city’s small business district instead of “doing study after study.”

Despite his criticism of Gainey’s administration, he said the current mayor’s love for Pittsburgh was never in doubt. They simply had differing plans for the future of the city. 

O’Connor called for unity in the Democratic Party during and after his speech. To those who didn’t vote for him, he said, “Let’s sit down [and] have the conversation.” 

“To me, it starts fresh. Tomorrow starts a whole new election in the fall, and we’re going to need everybody to take that message of growth and opportunity to our fall election.” 

“This has been a wonderful four years,” Gainey said in a concession speech at the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers headquarters in South Side. “We didn’t put a crack in the glass ceiling. We shattered it.”

Gainey told his supporters that the coalition of voters that helped him prevail four years ago will remain “on the rise” despite the setback.

“Don’t be defeated,” Gainey said. “Don’t be sad. Be glad of the progress that we made. It would have been easy for me to bow to power but it was more exhilarating to fight them for you.”

Gainey congratulated O’Connor on running a “well-designed” campaign and, after some in the crowd jeered, said, “We’re not going to spread hate.”

Scenes from Mayor Ed Gainey’s primary election night party, Tuesday, May 20, 2025, at the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers on the South Side. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/PublicSource)

2025 race a very different climate from 2021

“For me, Pittsburgh should be every family’s first choice,” O’Connor said after casting his vote Tuesday morning. “I think that’s the kind of administration we would build. And we’re excited to have that opportunity.”

O’Connor will be a heavy favorite in the general election due to the large Democratic majority that has picked all of Pittsburgh’s mayors since the 1930s.

O’Connor, 40, is just the second challenger to unseat a Pittsburgh mayor running for reelection in nearly a century. The other was Gainey, who beat then-Mayor Bill Peduto in 2021. 

O’Connor’s win comes as the city and nation are in a very different place than they were when social justice activists and a restless electorate took down Peduto and swept Gainey into office. 

Then, the nation was wobbling out of the pandemic’s economic shock and Joe Biden was beginning his presidency. Now, Donald Trump is back in the White House and city leaders are wondering how his push for massive spending cuts will reshape the city the next mayor will lead. 

Then, Democratic politics was dominated by calls for police reform, with the protests following the murder of George Floyd fresh in the national mind. Now, neither candidate centered police accountability in their campaign, and both focused on economic and housing concerns after those issues were central to last year’s presidential race.

O’Connor could inherit Gainey’s struggles

O’Connor spent much of the campaign criticizing Gainey’s record, typical of a challenger, and would have his work cut out for him to make good on promises to build more affordable housing units than Gainey did, add officers to the police force and stabilize city finances that he has said are in disarray.

“I see a mayor that is managing decline instead of working to grow Pittsburgh,” O’Connor said when he launched his campaign in December. 

His economic development platform includes a 90-neighborhood “cleanup program,” a promise to remediate blighted buildings and a pledge to invest $10 million in 10 business districts about the city — an idea similar to the Peduto-era program Avenues of Hope, which targeted investment at Pittsburgh’s Black business communities.

He faulted Gainey for not overseeing enough affordable housing construction and said he would alter the city’s permitting and zoning system to encourage development. PublicSource reported in March that the city’s real estate and development industries were donating largely to O’Connor, and some industry leaders said they did so because they found it too burdensome to navigate Pittsburgh’s zoning and permitting process under Gainey.

Finding a permanent police chief would be near the top of the next mayor’s to-do list. O’Connor blasted Gainey throughout the campaign for failing to secure a permanent one; Gainey’s first pick, Larry Scirotto, quit last year to referee college basketball and his pick to succeed Scirotto resigned before being confirmed by City Council.

Perhaps the most daunting challenge in 2026 and beyond lies in the city’s balance sheet, which O’Connor said contains a looming disaster. 

Real estate tax revenue has been depressed by changes to the assessment process and post-pandemic teleworking trends. The city’s current five-year plan projects the rainy day fund to shrink from $208 million at the start of 2024 to $72 million at the end of 2029. Avoiding that fate would require cuts to staff or services, a revenue boost, or both.

O’Connor’s argument that Gainey has overseen decline in Pittsburgh was rebutted last week by new data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which estimated that Pittsburgh grew by more than 1% last year and sustained modest net growth across the first four years of this decade — a major development considering the city’s decades of mostly steady decline since the 1980s.

O’Connor follows father’s path

O’Connor grew up in Squirrel Hill and attended Central Catholic High School, where he later coached golf. His father, Bob O’Connor, became a City Council member when Corey was 7, became mayor when the son was 22 and died of brain cancer less than a year after that, in 2006. 

Corey O’Connor rarely talked about his father on the campaign trail this year, but has spent decades following his example. After graduating from Duquesne University and working for a few years in the office of former U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, he ran for his father’s old City Council seat in 2011 using money left over from his late father’s campaign account. 

He stayed in the seat for a decade before being appointed Allegheny County controller, but soon turned his gaze on his father’s highest achievement, the mayor’s office that his father reached, but held so briefly.

His political foes debate how much he truly accomplished as a member of council, but he was doubtlessly present for significant moments in Pittsburgh’s history. He served alongside the mayor who succeeded his father, Luke Ravenstahl, through eight years of Peduto’s tenure and the progressive shift that brought Gainey into City Hall. The city emerged from state financial oversight during his decade on council, neighborhoods like Lawrenceville and the Strip District were transformed and unfathomable tragedy came to Pittsburgh with the Tree of Life shooting.

The city was finding its footing as a medical and educational hub when O’Connor entered public life, and it faces some comparable turbulence today. The local economy is still evolving to the post-pandemic reality, and the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts would reshape numerous city institutions, including City Hall.   

Moreno wins Republican primary

Tony Moreno, a retired police detective from Brighton Heights, is the Republican mayoral nominee for the second time. He was an unlikely GOP champion in 2021, first running in the Democratic primary and ultimately winning the Republican nod through write-in votes. 

There was no write-in effort this time as city Republicans had a competitive mayoral primary for the first time since 2001. Moreno defeated Thomas West, a Lawrenceville clothing store owner. 

Moreno stood from his chair, slowly, with a smile in the back room of Moonlit Cafe in Brookline when the first poll results showed him taking an early lead.

Moreno, who spent most of his day at the polls — even directing traffic following a minor crash on Route 51 near Carrick — said Pittsburgh’s move toward progressive leadership has gone “too far” for the historically blue-collar, Democratic city. 

He said his campaign transcends party politics. “I believe the message is the win,” Moreno said. 

For Cindy and Jerry Weisser, Moreno’s approachable demeanor attracts them to the Republican nominee. 

“He’s like one of us,” Cindy said while wearing a black and gold “Tony Moreno for Mayor” T-shirt. 

The couple said their North Side neighbors include several condemned properties, and they believe Moreno is best poised to improve struggling neighborhoods.

Moreno has campaigned heavily on public safety, calling for more support to the police force and better access to mental health services, such as having social workers on police calls, he said. 

Moreno ran largely on his background as a police officer, saying the city administration has betrayed its officers and should invest more resources in the force. 

Gainey defeated Moreno in the 2021 general election, 71% to 28%. Moreno reported raising $4,000 in the months leading up to the primary.

Looking forward to his general election campaign against O’Connor, Moreno said his team is celebrating now, but is ready to push his same campaign messages into the coming months. 

“It’s just asking the questions the community is asking,” Moreno said.

Democrats prepare for new era

City Councilor Bobby Wilson, whose district includes parts of the North Side and the Strip District, said the primary result was “very promising for the future of Pittsburgh.” Speaking at the nominee’s party, he said O’Connor would be ready on day one to tackle issues facing the city including tax revenue from Downtown and an aging emergency services vehicle fleet. 

“This is a correction from three years ago,” Wilson said. “It’s time to move on.” 

City Council President R. Daniel Lavelle, who endorsed Gainey despite having worked with O’Connor on council for a decade, said he looks forward to working with the party nominee, who he described as “pragmatic.”

“He and I could always have very honest and frank conversations together, even when we disagreed,” Lavelle added.

Councilor Khari Mosley, who represents Gainey’s neighborhood in the northeast of the city, said the mayor has been “a great partner.”

“I think his lived experience gave him a unique perspective on the challenges that are facing the city,” Mosley said. “He’s lived through a lot of challenges that so many Pittsburghers are living and experiencing.”

Charlie Wolfson is PublicSource’s local government reporter. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.

Maddy Franklin reports on higher ed for PublicSource, in partnership with Open Campus, and can be reached at madison@publicsource.org.

Ember Duke is an editorial intern at PublicSource through the Pittsburgh Media Partnership and can be reached at ember@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Ayla Saeed.

This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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