Retired Pittsburgh police officer Tony Moreno plans to announce Friday afternoon that he will run for mayor in the spring primary as a Republican, GOP officials confirmed.
Moreno, who unsuccessfully ran for the office against now-Mayor Ed Gainey in 2021, plans to run this year on a three-plank platform, tackling Pittsburghers’ concerns over public safety, housing and homelessness, and the city economy, according to an email from the Pittsburgh Republican Committee.
The 56-year-old Brighton Heights resident came in third in the Democratic primary four years ago, getting 13% of the vote. Gainey defeated incumbent Bill Peduto that year, denying the mayor a third term in office.
Moreno, however, received 1,379 write-in votes in the Republican primary in 2021, well above the 250-vote threshold to gain the GOP nomination.
Gainey ultimately bested Moreno at the polls in the general election that November.
Moreno said public safety “must be our top priority,” according to the committee’s email, and stressed he would hire more officers and first responders, increase patrols and implement “community-based strategies to reduce crime” if elected.
“None of these can be accomplished without accountability and transparency,” Moreno said.
Gainey, 55, a Democrat and former state representative from Pittsburgh’s Lincoln-Lemington neighborhood, is running in the May 20 primary in hopes of gaining his party nomination for a second term in office.
He is so far facing one challenger, Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor, 40, of Pittsburgh’s Point Breeze neighborhood.
Moreno said he enlisted in the military out of high school and served as an Army Airborne military police officer.
He worked for Pittsburgh police from 1994 to 2018, retiring as a detective, according to his LinkedIn profile. He lists his occupation on the social media platform as an investigator and self-employed contractor.
If GOP voters get behind Moreno, he’ll face an entrenched Democratic voter base in the fall.
More than 900,000 residents in Allegheny County are registered voters, and Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1, according to state statistics released Monday.
About 502,000 county residents are registered Democrats, versus nearly 265,000 registered Republicans, data shows. More than 104,000 county voters are unaffiliated.
Pittsburgh, a longtime Democratic Party stronghold, has not had a Republican mayor since the 1930s.