O’Connor campaign has 60 times more cash than GOP rival six weeks before mayoral vote

Corey O’Connor, the Democratic nominee for mayor of Pittsburgh, on May 20 at his primary election night party. (Photo by Quinn Glabicki/PublicSource)

The Democrat’s haul of $367,000 came thanks in part to labor union PACs, developers, the Steelers president.

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by Charlie Wolfson, Pittsburgh’s Public Source

As far as campaign funding is concerned, Democratic nominee Corey O’Connor is running away with the general election race for Pittsburgh mayor. He has raised $367,000 since June 10, new disclosures show, and has $270,000 on hand heading into the final stretch of the election season. That’s more than 60 times the roughly $4,000 Republican nominee Tony Moreno has on hand.

Election Day is Nov. 4. O’Connor already flexed his fundraising muscles this year, outraising incumbent Democratic Mayor Ed Gainey in the spring and besting him in the primary election. 

He attracted a coalition of civic leaders, construction and development magnates and labor unions who donated near the legal limit ahead of the primary, and many did so again over the summer as O’Connor prepares to take on Moreno.

Among political action committees that gave at the $5,000 limit to O’Connor this summer were:

• The Pittsburgh paramedics’ union PAC
• The Greater PA Carpenters PAC
• Highmark PAC
• The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers PAC
• The Steamfitters Local 449 PAC.

As during the primary season, many of his individual donors listed as employers development companies (Trek Development, The Buncher Company and Walnut Capital, to name a few) and Downtown-based law firms. Steelers President Arthur Rooney II, who previously wrote checks to Gainey’s campaign, donated $2,000 to O’Connor in June. 

Moreno’s haul reflects a candidacy that few observers see as competitive — including, apparently, the Republican Committee of Pittsburgh, which cut ties with Moreno. Pittsburgh has not elected a Republican mayor since the 1930s, and Moreno was trounced at the polls as the GOP nominee in 2021. 

In addition to the roughly $4,000 Moreno’s campaign raised, it received more than $5,000 in in-kind donations, mostly in the form of jewelry and purses, according to reports.

O’Connor is the Allegheny County controller and formerly served on city council. Moreno is a former police detective.

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

This article first appeared on Pittsburgh’s Public Source and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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