 In the years immediately after World War I, Corning collaborated with Daniel P. O'Connell to create a Democratic organization in Albany that could wrest control of the city from the Republican organization run by William Barnes Jr.; their strategy was to run wealthy non-ethnic Protestants like Edwin Corning, William Stormont Hackett, Parker Corning, and Erastus Corning 2nd for major offices including mayor and Congressman to enhance the respectability and credibility of a Democratic organization run by working class Irish-American, Catholic figures like O'Connell.Corning became chairman of the Albany County Democratic Committee in 1912 and chairman of the county committee's executive committee in 1919.In the 1921 contest for mayor, the O'Connell/Corning organization succeeded in electing Hackett, the beginning of Democratic control of city hall that has remained in place ever since.