The Democrats competing in Pittsburgh’s May 20 mayoral primary traded criticism over their donors on Monday, after Mayor Ed Gainey blasted Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor for reports tying O’Connor to Republican contributors. O’Connor, for his part, pushed back by faulting Gainey’s own receipts — and pointing to the incumbent’s previous willingness to host a GOP presidential convention.
At a press event Monday afternoon, Gainey said “Trump’s donors” were “bankrolling O’Connor’s campaign.”
"There's one place I didn't expect to have to fend the MAGA assault, and that was the mayoral primary race,” Gainey told reporters. “But unfortunately, this is exactly where we are at. Trump's MAGA megadonors, his consultants and corporate interests, are trying to buy the mayor's office.”
Supporters at the event argued O'Connor was tainted by the money, and recalled the negative impacts of Trump's policies and firings so far. Monica Ruiz, executive director of the Latino advocacy group Casa San Jose, surmised that Trump's people think O'Connor will be easier to influence.
"We can't afford to elect a mayor who's in the pocket of Trump's cronies," she said. "It's time for Corey O'Connor to return the Trump money and stop working with MAGA consultants."
Gainey’s press conference followed Monday-morning reports in The Guardian and The Intercept, which highlighted the support of Republican donors for his campaign. Gainey campaign signs had been printed for the event, urging O’Connor to “Return Trump’s MAGA Money.”
The stories flagged less than a quarter of the contributions O’Connor raised in January. But as they noted, Republicans giving to O’Connor include Iron City Brewing owner and coal mining magnate Cliff Forrest, whose $1 million donation to Trump’s 2017 inauguration event was the largest in Pennsylvania. Among other top donors are Kent McElhattan, a giver to Republican Dave McCormick’s 2024 Senate bid and other GOP causes, and Florida retiree Herb Shear, who donated last year to McCormick, local U.S. House candidate Rob Mercuri, and the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Also donating to O’Connor were Ritchie Battle, the ex-wife of the late Tribune-Review publisher Richard Mellon Scaife, and William Lieberman, who formerly led a state-appointed board that monitored the city’s finances.
O'Connor characterized Gainey's criticisms as "a joke.” He said his campaign was receiving small-dollar donations from small business owners and city residents, adding he was proud of the "diverse group we've been able to bring together."
O’Connor also pointed to a number of Republican donations made to Gainey, including those that date back before the current election cycle. Forrest and his wife were among Gainey's donors in 2021: Gainey's campaign has said it refunded that money last week. Other contributors O'Connor's team flagged include Henry Posner, a railroad executive and longtime Republican donor, as well as James Scalo, a 2020 Trump donor whose roofing firm has been active in city politics.
O’Connor said he would return Republican donations if Gainey would do the same. "If he returns the money, then I'll return the money."
Gainey’s contributions predated his own, O’Connor said: "He started this."
O’Connor also attended a Feb. 17 event at the Duquesne Club, long a refuge of the city’s business elite, at which plans to topple Gainey were discussed. An email invitation to the event reported by the outlets — and seen separately by WESA — was written by Jeff Kendall, an executive for a private-equity firm involved in waste disposal who was active in an outside-spending group that sought to elect Republican Joe Rockey in the 2023 Allegheny County Executive race.
According to Kendall’s email, O’Connor was slated to “open the meeting with his pitch and answer questions,” after which Kent Gates, a Republican political consultant previously active in Western Pennsylvania with the firm BrabenderCox, was to “discuss recent polling and the plan to win this race.”
O'Connor said his campaign did not coordinate the meeting, and that he made the kind of appearance he has been doing since the race began.
"I was invited to speak to a roundtable group of businesspeople across the region, I spoke and I left,” he said. “I don't know anything about the email that went out, I didn't know all the attendees. I knew that some of them there were Democrats."
It is not clear under whose auspices the event was arranged: The email does not identify a sponsoring organization, and as of last week, it did not appear that any outside funding organization had registered with the city or county to be active in the mayoral race. Kendall did not respond to a request for comment from WESA last week about the event. Gates could not be reached for comment.
O’Connor faulted Gainey for being willing to host a Republican event of his own: the 2024 Republican National Convention.
“Question why he wanted to welcome Trump and MAGA Republicans to our city. He's not out to look after Pittsburghers, he's out to look after himself at this point."
Gainey said the city had been “talking about building bridges [to] have a strong economy.” The event was ultimately held in Milwaukee.
O’Connor has been a prolific fundraiser, even setting aside his Republican donations. In January, his campaign outraised Gainey by nearly 20 to 1, garnering close to $465,000 in only one month and adding to the roughly $250,000 he had raised by the end of 2024. Gainey raised only around $24,000 in the month of January, adding to his campaign coffer of $268,000 that he had raised by the end of last year.
O’Connor trounced Gainey in large-dollar donations from individuals, but also received boosts from a couple of building-trades unions, who tend to skew more conservative, and the Beacon Coalition, a Jewish advocacy group.
Monday is the deadline for reporting February’s financial activity to the city’s Ethics Hearing Board.
Chris Potter contributed.
This story is developing and will be updated.
