Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey held a newss conference last week that Grant Street scuttlebutt had billed as a game changer for his struggling campaign for reelection. It did not go as Gainey had hoped.

Gainey accused his Democratic primary election opponent Corey O’Connor of taking campaign contributions from Republican donors — some of whom have contributed to Donald Trump and MAGA candidates. But the O’Connor campaign quickly turned Gainey’s argument against him.

It turns out Gainey has taken campaign contributions from some of these same Republican donors. Confronted with the facts, Gainey responded with the “hems and haws” and “yes, buts” that are common when someone swings hard and whiffs the ball. In the end, the press conference went the way of many of his administration’s actions and policies: It seemed ill-conceived, not researched and poorly executed.

Like other major stakeholders in Pittsburgh, Republicans have always contributed to Democratic campaigns for mayor. The decisive Democratic registration edge and Pennsylvania’s closed primary election system leave little else for Republicans to do when they, too, have a stake in who is the mayor of Pittsburgh.

Joe DiSarro, a political science professor at Washington & Jefferson College, told TribLive last week that it makes sense Republicans would donate to a Democrat who they believe is more capable of dealing with the city’s problems.

“They want to have a voice,” DiSarro said. “And you’re not going to have a voice if you’re on the losing side consistently.”

Since both candidates have taken money from Republicans, it is not the big issue Gainey had hoped would turn his campaign around. But Gainey’s emphasis on Trump raises other comparisons to Trump’s campaign and governing tactics.

Like Trump, Gainey has ensconced himself with the ideo­logical extreme of his party. Trump plays to the far right; Gainey is encamped with the far left — the so-described progressives that helped elect him.

Compromise is a dirty word to both extremes. Those voters in the middle — and the causes and policies they care about — are pretty much ignored.

So far, divide and conquer has worked well for Trump nationally. But that strategy has not worked for Gainey locally. Gainey remains at war with UPMC, talking tough and taking potshots, but delivering nothing. Similarly, he has refused to work for common ground with the region’s developers at a time when Pittsburgh needs all hands on deck to grow. Finally, he refuses to talk to one of the city’s two major newspapers, limiting vital public conversation instead of increasing it.

While the mayor and his campaign want you to think that Pittsburgh’s Democratic mayoral primary election is about MAGA and other national political trends, you may be jolted into thinking more clearly when you run your car into one of the tooth-rattling potholes that are sprouting in our streets.

This is a local race. It is about failed street maintenance and snow removal. It is about a collapsing infrastructure — closed bridges — without any sense of urgency to reopen them. It is about the defunding of the shrinking police force. It is about leadership that should be chasing down every single chance to have new businesses locate here. It is about jobs and growth. We have a local economy and central business district stuck in neutral and sliding backwards. We need leadership to plan our recovery. These are the issues.

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