Politicos are fond of saying that the only poll that matters is the one that closes at 8 p.m. on Election Day. But Mayor Ed Gainey’s campaign is putting out results of its own polling today, making the case that — despite the findings of surveys produced by the camp of rival Corey O’Connor — it’s Gainey who is in the driver’s seat.
The internal poll shows Gainey with a 7-point lead over O’Connor — a margin of 49% to 42% — among likely Democratic voters. The 402 people surveyed were polled by phone and text last week by the Washington D.C.-based firm Upswing. The poll shows Gainey leading among voters under 40 by a 62% to 31% margin, and the party’s most progressive voters by a 58% to 34% margin. Black voters favor Gainey by a margin of 10 to 1, it says.
Those demographics weighed heavily in Gainey’s 2021 victory over former Mayor Bill Peduto, and Gainey cited those numbers — and a finding that 55% of voters approve of the job he’s doing — as proof that the city was coalescing behind him.
“Our campaign has all of the momentum in this race,” said Gainey in a statement. “We’ve proven again and again since 2021 that when we come together … we are unstoppable. We’re ready to mass mobilize and turn out every vote to keep building a city for all.”
The poll reported having a 4.9 percent margin of error, with 10 percent of voters still undecided in the race.
Ben Forstate, who is managing the O'Connor campaign, scoffed at Gainey's numbers, but acknowledged the race had tightened.
"We think Gainey's recent polling is nonsense," said Forstate. The O'Connor campaign conducted a poll of its own last week that "had Corey up by 4 and Gainey underwater on approval" with only 39 percent approving of Gainey's job performance and 55 percent disapproving.
"Gainey's been outspent and Corey's been up consistently," said Forstate."
Gainey's results conflict sharply with earlier polls that have been released publicly, but those earlier surveys — showing leads that reached into the low 20-percentage-point range — largely come from O’Connor’s camp or an outside group backing him. The only independent poll to be put out so far was released by AARP in March, and it focused solely on voters aged 50 and over — the demographic from which AARP draws its members. That poll found older Pittsburgh Democrats favoring O’Connor by 58% to 24%. (Though it also found overwhelming support for one of Gainey’s signature issues: the use of zoning requirements called “inclusionary zoning” to create more affordable housing.)
Even so, the numbers provided by the O'Connor campaign Monday morning reflected a tightening a race: Earlier polls reported by the O'Connor campaign previously reported an advantage of 18 points. "It was always going to tighten," said Forstate. "But Corey's still ahead."
Upswing’s founder, Pittsburgh native Ethan Smith, has served as a house pollster for progressive candidates: Gainey called him “the best there is” after he made use of Smith’s data to help engineer his 2021 election win. Smith has said progressive candidates do well when they run on issues such as housing — a topic that became the center of a controversy last week when mayoral candidates sparred over how many units of affordable housing Gainey deserves credit for.
Gainey has also been outfundraised throughout the race, though Gainey’s camp has sought to hold O’Connor’s fundraising edge against him, linking some donors to Republican politicians. More broadly, in recent weeks Gainey has stepped up his criticism of President Donald Trump on issues ranging from immigration policy to medical treatment for transgender children and the fate of a local Social Security office.
On Monday morning, Gainey’s campaign appears poised to tout the new poll at a campaign rally where he will join with, and be endorsed by, leaders of progressive organizations. The Democratic primary is May 20.
