Gainey, O'Connor vote as Pittsburgh mayoral primary enters homestretch

Pittsburgh’s Democratic candidates for mayor — incumbent Ed Gainey and challenger Corey O’Connor — cast their votes Tuesday morning in a primary that will likely decide the city’s next leader thanks to the party’s lopsided registration advantage over Republicans.

Gainey voted around 10 a.m. at Paulson Recreation Center in Lincoln-Lemington where he lives and said the location reflected some of the accomplishments of his tenure.

Extending rec centers’ hours around the city has helped drive down Pittsburgh’s homicide and violent crime rate, especially among juveniles, said Gainey, who has made the reduction in violence a key talking point of his campaign.

“That’s what it’s about: it’s about getting our young kids off the street and into structured activities so that they continue to live structured lives,” Gainey, 55, told reporters.

There were 71 homicides in Pittsburgh in 2022, Gainey’s first year in office, Pittsburgh police statistics show. That total dropped to 52 in 2023 and 42 last year.

O’Connor, Allegheny County’s controller, on Tuesday talked less about policy and more about emotions after casting his vote around 8 a.m. at Linden Elementary School in his neighborhood of Point Breeze.

“For me, Pittsburgh should be every family’s first choice and I think that’s the type of administration we’d build,” O’Connor, 40, said.

O’Connor, a former Pittsburgh councilman, held his son Emmett, 2, as he spoke with the media. His wife, Katie, held their 3-year-old daughter, Molly.

“I feel proud of the way we ran this election, talking about issues that matter to all Pittsburghers,” O’Connor added. “We have a choice in front of us today — we can take our city in a different direction, where we’re more transparent (and) we talk about growth and opportunity in all areas.”

Tuesday morning was quiet in much of the city.

As O’Connor arrived to cast his vote, the number of news reporters and TV crews significantly outnumbered those casting ballots.

In the 30 minutes before Gainey showed up at his polling place, only two or three voters walked in and out of the recreation center.

Different approaches

Gainey, a former state representative, has framed his first three years in office as a success story. When campaigning, he cites his administration’s successes fighting crime and building affordable housing.

“It’s not time to go back to yesterday. Yesterday is forever gone,” Gainey told reporters outside the recreation center. “Evolution don’t go back, it goes forward.”

O’Connor, son of the late Mayor Bob O’Connor, doesn’t see the last three years in the same light as Gainey. He argues Pittsburgh has fallen into decline and needs new leadership to reverse a shrinking police force and plummeting Downtown property values.

Both candidates want more affordable housing, safer streets and a revitalized Downtown — but they differ on how to achieve those goals.

In a campaign that’s featured a fair amount of mudslinging, Gainey’s team has assailed O’Connor, claimed his rival has accepted “MAGA money” and predicted he will cater to developers who have donated to him.

O’Connor, meanwhile, has cast recent upheaval in city hall as reflecting dysfunction in the Gainey administration.

The winner will run in November’s general election against either retired Pittsburgh police Officer Tony Moreno or small-business owner Thomas West, both of whom are running Tuesday on the Republican ticket.

Voter turnout was sparse Tuesday — even by standards for a year without a presidential or congressional race, poll workers and political insiders told reporters.

Few disruptions

The county said a “smattering” of incidents kept election workers busy in West View and parts of Pittsburgh, including some power outages, equipment issues or trouble getting into a polling location.

By 9:30 a.m., there were no more issues to resolve at the county’s 1,327 polling places. But about two hours later, the county said a polling place in Pittsburgh’s New Homestead — Mt. Rise Baptist Church at 500 Ingot Ave., an elections judge smelled natural gas.

The precinct was closed — and voters redirected to a different polling location — out of an abundance of caution, an Allegheny County spokeswoman said.

The new polling place is approximately six minutes away, on Baldwin Road in Hays.

As of 11:30 a.m., election workers handling mail-in votes had removed all inner envelopes from outer envelopes and extracting ballots, officials said.

Results will be posted after 8 p.m. at Election Night Reporting.