Corey O’Connor, mayor-elect of Pittsburgh, arrives at his election night party with his wife, Katie, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, at the IBEW Local 5 in the South Side. Behind them, O’Connor’s sister, Heidy O’Connor Garth, holds up a sign. (Photo by Stephanie Strasburg/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)

 Corey O’Connor, a 41-year-old Point Breeze resident, will be the city’s 62nd chief executive come January.

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by Charlie Wolfson, Pittsburgh’s Public Source

Corey O’Connor — the county controller, former city councilor, graduate of Central Catholic High School and Duquesne University, former high school golf coach and the son of Pittsburgh’s 58th mayor — will be the city’s 62nd mayor. 

He won the general election Tuesday, easily overcoming Republican rival Tony Moreno. He will succeed Mayor Ed Gainey, who O’Connor toppled in the Democratic primary in May. 

The Associated Press called the race at 8:26 p.m. based on the Democrat’s 11-to-1 margin in mail-in ballots.

“Tomorrow the hard work begins,” O’Connor said in a victory speech that began before 9:30 p.m. “The road we will travel is long and steeply uphill.” 

Speaking to hundreds of supporters at a South Side election night party, the Democrat said it was time “to create opportunities for our kids, to prioritize safety in our neighborhoods, to facilitate responsible development.

Corey O’Connor, Mayor-elect of Pittsburgh and current Allegheny County controller at his election night party, Nov. 4, at the IBEW Local 5 in the South Side. (Photos by Stephanie Strasburg/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)

“Now it’s time to roll up our sleeves and to deliver on the promise of progress. It is time for us to believe in each other and believe in our city again.”

City Hall will feel like it did prior to Gainey’s tenure in at least one tangible way: O’Connor said to reporters Tuesday night that Dan Gilman, the chief of staff to former Mayor Bill Peduto, will join his administration in a prominent role.

He said he plans to announce key staffing decisions in December, well ahead of his inauguration, including the choice of a new police chief. He hinted at a formal — though internal — hiring process coming soon and producing a nominee as soon as December, which would represent a far more rapid process than Gainey undertook after assuming office.

He said his first worry heading into his mayorship is the city’s budget, and that Gainey texted him Tuesday night offering to open his office in the coming weeks to allow O’Connor’s team to get up to speed. “I thank him for his leadership,” O’Connor said of his primary campaign rival.

Twenty years after his father’s win

O’Connor grew emotional during his speech when he spoke of his late parents. “They’re not with us tonight, but I’m sure mom and dad are happy somewhere,” O’Connor said. He later added he expects inauguration day, Jan. 5, to be a “tough day emotionally” as he opens a mayoral term 20 years after his father.

His father, Bob O’Connor, won the office in 2005 after a decadeslong political career, but died of brain cancer less than a year later. Corey was 23 at the time, and five years later, he embarked on a journey that will soon bring the family name back to the mayor’s office.

His win, in some respects, marks a return to Pittsburgh’s political norm. He unseated the only non-white mayor in the city’s history, and the city’s list of former mayors is full of East End residents, political families and men who spent years on City Council before running for mayor. O’Connor checks all those boxes.https://interactives.ap.org/election-results/customers/layouts/organization-layouts/published/124689/26259.html

Gainey’s election in 2021 reflected the national mood at the time as a restless electorate, fresh off a year of racial justice protest that stirred the nation, issued a rare rebuke to a sitting Pittsburgh mayor and gave the city its first Black chief executive. Gainey campaigned that year on police reform, social justice and equity issues.

O’Connor spent much of the 2025 campaign focused on tried-and-true economic and fiscal issues, running on bolstering the city’s bottom line and boosting economic development.

But O’Connor brings new perspectives, too. Born in 1984, he is the first millennial mayor. He came of age well after the collapse of the region’s steel industry and began his career as the city’s ‘eds and meds’ economy began to flourish in the 2000s. He matured just as Pittsburgh went through a fiscal meltdown, which led to state oversight and major layoffs.

Republican Moreno won’t run again

Moreno won a contested Republican primary in May, following a 2021 effort in which he lost the Democratic primary but emerged as the Republican nominee, losing to Gainey. With most votes counted, he was on pace to fall well short of his 2021 General Election total of just over 20,000, while O’Connor was shattering Gainey’s margin of that year.

Tony Moreno, Republican nominee for Pittsburgh mayor, concedes surrounded by friends and family at his election night party at Moonlight Cafe, Nov. 4, in Brookline. (Photo by Alex Jukurta/Pittsburgh’s Public Source)

Asked at a Brookline party if he will run again, Moreno said that this will be his last bid for mayor. He said that he and his wife will instead focus on mental health training. “I don’t see myself doing anything else on politics. It’s gross and horrible,” he said, calling city government a “cesspool.”

“The City of Pittsburgh is broken. We need to fix it,” he said, claiming he knows how.

He conceded shortly after 10 p.m. In defeat, he did not stop taking shots at his rival.

Moreno said that none of the problems he thinks the city faces will be resolved by O’Connor. “We know what his term will be like. No new ideas are being brought forth by him.”

Challenges await new mayor

Topping the list of problems awaiting O’Connor in January is the city’s financial position. While Gainey has maintained a balanced operating budget on paper, transfers into housing and anti-violence funds and infrastructure investments have meant that the city’s rainy day fund has shrunk consistently since 2021. Gainey’s latest five-year projection shows it shrinking to the legal minimum by 2030.

The financial headwinds have been chiefly caused by a decrease in the city’s property tax revenue. Prior to 2020, the city could count on an annual increase in property value and tax payments, enabling spending to at least keep up with inflation. But two simultaneous shocks — the pandemic’s shakeup of commercial real estate value and a lawsuit changing how property tax bills are calculated — resulted in stagnant and sometimes shrinking property tax revenue. 

The new reality in the nation’s capital brings uncertainty in a host of other areas for the new mayor. Federal budget cuts and the ongoing shutdown are placing more stress on county and nonprofit programs that feed and house low-income families. Cuts to science and medical research are straining the universities and hospitals that fuel much of Pittsburgh’s modern economy. And President Donald Trump seeks to end a grant program that awards more than $10 million a year to the city for infrastructure projects in economically distressed neighborhoods.

Housing affordability, development and neighborhood renewal will also test O’Connor on some of his key promises from the primary campaign. Nonpartisan researchers have found Pittsburgh is well short of the number of affordable housing units it needs, and O’Connor and Gainey sparred throughout the spring over how to address the issue. 

O’Connor favored a more free-market approach, opposing Gainey’s plan to extend affordability mandates to large developments across the city and garnering campaign donations from many development and construction companies. Large apartment buildings are just a part of the Pittsburgh housing equation, though; the city has thousands of decrepit, abandoned homes that need to be demolished, with many whole neighborhoods weighed down by high vacancy rates. The Pittsburgh Land Bank, created a decade ago to address this very issue, sputtered to life under Gainey but will need more investment to make a big dent in the city’s needs.

Rev. Ricky Burgess, a former City Councilman for part of Pittsburgh’s East End who represented one of the city’s two majority-Black districts, said he expects O’Connor to bring about revitalization “aimed at every community,” and that he expects O’Connor to be able to heal divisions caused by the bitter May primary election against Gainey.

“I think he comes from a diverse background himself,” Burgess said. “You know, he has African American nieces. He had a Jewish mother, Catholic father, and so, he had to navigate stuff at the house as a kid, right? So I think those skills will help him navigate moving forward.”

O’Connor will also be tasked with selecting a new police year after years of instability at the position. Gainey’s first pick for the post departed after less than two years to pursue a career as a college basketball referee, and Gainey was unable to secure a permanent replacement as political pressure mounted ahead of this year’s campaign. O’Connor made hiring a “full-time” police chief a key campaign promise, jabbing at former Chief Larry Scirotto’s short-lived attempt to ref basketball on the side while remaining chief.

Following father’s footsteps

Bob O’Connor became a City Council member when Corey was 7, became mayor when his son was 22 and died of brain cancer the following year.

O’Connor rarely spoke of his father on the campaign trail this year, but he has undoubtedly followed his example for decades. He sought work in the public sector just after college in the office of former U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, then used his late father’s leftover campaign funds to launch his successful run for the same council seat.

He occupied that seat for a decade before being appointed Allegheny County controller in 2022, and soon turned his attention back down Grant Street to the mayor’s office.

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. Neighborhoods like Lawrenceville and the Strip District were transformed, and unfathomable tragedy came to Pittsburgh with the Tree of Life shooting.

O’Connor responded to the mass shooting with landmark gun legislation which did not hold up in court. Another of his signature legislative initiatives, a paid sick leave requirement, fared better.

The city was finding its footing as a medical and educational hub when O’Connor entered public life, and exited financial distress in 2018 while he was on council. Today, the local economy is still calibrating to post-pandemic reality and Trump administration budgeting presents challenges for numerous institutions, including City Hall.

Charlie Wolfson is the local government reporter for Pittsburgh’s Public Source. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.