A Mayor's Son Prepares to Inherit the Job His Father Never Got to Finish

New York Times

22-05-2025

On the morning after, Corey O'Connor stood with his wife, Katie, on a corner in their Pittsburgh neighborhood. Each cradled a toddler in one arm — she carried Molly, he carried Emmett — and in the other arm held up a handmade sign that read 'Thank you, Pittsburgh.' Passers-by waved and honked.
That gesture on Wednesday morning was how Mr. O'Connor chose to thank the voters who a day earlier had sent him to victory in the Democratic primary for mayor of Pittsburgh.
It was also a familiar one. Mr. O'Connor's father, Bob, had done the same thing when he won the Democratic primary for mayor in 2005, standing on a street corner with a hand-drawn thank-you sign — finally on his way to the city's top office after two failed attempts.
For many Pittsburgh residents, the ascent of the younger O'Connor, 40, surely rekindled memories of his father, a champion of the city who was diagnosed with brain cancer six months into his term and died weeks later.
'Corey has it,' said Bruce A. Kraus, who served on the City Council with Mr. O'Connor. 'Corey was weened at his father's heel. He's got a good heart and a good moral compass.'
In a city that hasn't had a Republican mayor since one was appointed in 1932, Mr. O'Connor is heavily favored to win the general election in November against the Republican nominee, Tony Moreno. Still, Mr. O'Connor's ascent represents a notable turn for the city and the party, four years after Ed Gainey rode a wave of pandemic-fueled progressivism to defeat two-time incumbent Bill Peduto in the Democratic primary.
Mr. Gainey had pledged to not leave poor and working-class neighborhoods behind in bringing the city out of the pandemic. But his progress was incremental and his missteps in running the city left an opening for Mr. O'Connor, who has been controller for Allegheny County, which includes Pittsburgh, since 2022, after serving more than a decade on the City Council.
In the end, voters chose a manager over a leader, someone who promised a smooth-running city rather than a grand vision.
Mr. Gainey won more votes this time than he did in the four-way primary four years ago, and his support was even stronger in Black neighborhoods. But in a two-person race, Mr. O'Connor, who won 52.8 percent of the vote to Mr. Gainey's 47.2 percent, peeled away votes from Mr. Gainey in traditional liberal strongholds like Squirrel Hill, where Mr. O'Connor lives, and gentrified Lawrenceville. The turnout, which is expected to exceed 60,000 when all the votes are counted, was the biggest in a Democratic primary since 2001.
'We will make our city government deliver,' Mr. O'Connor said late Tuesday night at a campaign party, bounding onto the stage to Bon Jovi's 'Who Says You Can't Go Home.' 'Deliver a police force that is large enough to support our residents and have a chief of police. Enough housing so that anyone can afford to live in Pittsburgh. And support businesses of all sizes so that we can grow and create wealth all over the city.'
If his ascent now seems ordained, it was not always so.
When his father died, Mr. O'Connor was a senior at Duquesne, the Catholic university in downtown Pittsburgh. The next spring, while pondering whether to apply to graduate school, Mr. O'Connor was at the U.S. Open golf tournament in nearby Oakmont when he ran into an aide for Representative Mike Doyle.
The aide asked Mr. O'Connor whether he would be interested in a community development position. He soon realized those days he'd spent tagging along with his father at campaign events and meeting constituents had left a mark.
'My dad always said, 'I'm not going to leave you with any money, but I'm going to leave you with a name that you could do whatever you want with,'' Mr. O'Connor said in an interview last week. 'It's amazing, going around the city, how many people have these little stories — 'Oh, my kid didn't have enough money for ice cream, so your dad gave him $5.''
Mr. O'Connor, who is more than a decade younger than his siblings, said service came naturally to his family. His brother, Terry, is a priest, and his sister, Heidy, has been active in the Bob O'Connor Foundation and other charities. Their mother, Judy O'Connor, who died a year ago, was a longtime volunteer at the Caring Place, which helps grieving children and adolescents.
'There's no doubt this is what he was called to do,' said Mr. O'Connor's wife, Katie, an employment lawyer who had known him as a teenager and reconnected with him in their mid-30s.
Still, when Mr. O'Connor considered entering the race last year, the man he wanted to run his campaign, Ben Forstate, tried to talk him out of it.
'He's a young dad in a good position and elections are really hard,' said Mr. Forstate, who managed the successful congressional campaign last year for Chris Deluzio, who represents a swing district of Pittsburgh suburbs. 'You have to really want to do this. I thought he was crazy.'
Soon enough, Mr. O'Connor will have to prove he is as adept at running a city as he is at running for office.
Barney Oursler, the director of the Mon Valley Unemployed Committee, which has supported workers who have lost their jobs since the coal and steel industries began to contract in the 1980s, described Mr. O'Connor as a nice guy who doesn't have a core set of values. He said Mr. O'Connor, while on the City Council, waffled on supporting a paid sick leave proposal after meeting with restaurant owners, but then ultimately voted for the measure, which easily passed. Mr. O'Connor called that characterization a lie, saying that he wanted to be sure the policy withstood any legal challenges.
'He genuinely wants to please everyone,' said Mr. Oursler, who backed Mr. Gainey. 'When he has to make a hard decision, how do you do that when you've made a commitment to everybody?'
Nevertheless, when Mr. O'Connor and Mr. Oursler crossed paths last week at a rally to raise the state's minimum wage, they exchanged hellos and a handshake.
Past battles, or future ones, were far from Mr. O'Connor's mind on Tuesday.
Instead, he gave a fleeting thought to how familiar the Election Day routine was from his father's races for mayor: Vote. Wait. Fidget. Ask his brother to lead another prayer.
The O'Connor family felt a familiar swirl of emotions.
'Sitting in the war room last night, I think we all had those flashbacks,' Mr. O'Connor's brother, Terry, said. 'It was a tough time for us all when my dad died, but it was hard on him. Now, I see a lot of similarities. You look back 20 years and you really see the progression of how he's grown through my dad's death and taken my dad's dream job. Now Corey's grabbing that torch.'