The Allegheny County controller, Corey O’Connor, defeated the mayor of Pittsburgh, Ed Gainey, in the very disputed democratic primaries of the city, The Associated Press projected on Tuesday, after a race that attracted national attention as a remarkable proxy fight between the progressive and the democrats of the central left.
With more than 85% of the votes, O’Connor led Gainey 54% -46% in the nominations contest.
Tuesday’s election was one of the first important democratic primaries from the 2024 elections in which the progressive and central wings of the left faced. And the mayor’s career followed an electoral cycle in which the democratic governance of the cities took the central stage in the Republican campaign messages.
Gainey and his allies painted O’Connor, the county controller and the son of a former mayor, in cloud with President Donald Trump and curited the real estate interests, pointing out the campaign donations of Trump’s sponsors and developers. The mayor, who was first chosen in 2021, also pointed out that they fall into violent crimes, the growth of local employment and the improved credit ratings of the city to counteract O’Connor, who portrayed Gainey as an unproductive mayor that failed in the management of the city’s finances, his police department, and on the fronts of general quality of life.
O’Connor launched its campaign at the end of last year, emerging as a favorite from the beginning and raising more money than Gainey, although the surveys showed the hardening of the race as the day of the elections approached. Last month, both campaigns promoted the internal surveys that show them with an advantage in the local career difficult to model: the Gainey campaign survey showed him 7 points, while O’Connor showed it in 4, although that was considerably closer than other surveys that his campaign promoted before in the cycle that the challenger showed in two digits.
Gainey, the first black mayor of the city, won a primary disputed in 2021, eliminating the headline mayor Bill Peduto in a three -way primary with a plurality of the vote. His victory was part of a progressive advance throughout the county, which precedes the victories of the representative Summer Lee, D-Pa., And the Allegheny executive of the Sara Innamorate County, among other candidates on the left who have won main offices in the area in recent years.
The housing career of the Pittsburgh mayor raised at the forefront of the local discussion. Gainey has tried to promulgate inclusive zoning policies throughout Pittsburgh that require new developments to reserve at least 10% of units for affordable homes. These policies are currently applied only to a few neighborhoods, and O’Connor was applied to the zoning policy of the city of the city.
Meanwhile, a key point of dispute in the race focused on how many affordable units have been built or built in the city since the beginning of Gainey’s mandate as mayor.
