Gay Former N.J. Governor, Jim McGreevey, Considering Run for Jersey City Mayor

Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, who came out as gay in 2004 when acknowledging an extramarital affair and resigning the governorship, is considering a run for mayor of Jersey City.

“I have mixed feelings about getting back into the public eye,” he told New Jersey Monthly last Thursday. “There’s joy that comes from public engagement, but the political landscape has, unfortunately, on both sides of the aisle, become more fractured and dissonant.” McGreevey has lived in Jersey City for several years.

In a recent interview with The New York Times,he also noted, “Being governor is so much about the budget, the dollar. Being mayor is about building strong communities.”

McGreevey said he will decide before Thanksgiving. “I’m getting closer to making that decision in the affirmative,” he told the Times.

The election is not until November 2025. Current Mayor Steven Fulop has said he won’t seek reelection, running for governor instead.

McGreevey is a Democrat, and the mayor’s race is officially nonpartisan, but the winner is likely to be a Democrat, as Jersey City and surrounding Hudson County are heavily Democratic. Three other well-known Democrats have expressed interest in the mayoralty. McGreevey has the endorsement of nine of the 12 mayors of cities in Hudson County, however.

McGreevey was in his first term as governor when he resigned. “My truth is that I am a gay American,” he said at the time. He was then married to a woman, but he said he had had an extramarital relationship with an aide.

That aide, Golan Cipel, later said he and McGreevey did not have a sexual affair, and Cipel said instead that McGreevey had made unwanted advances toward him. McGreevey disputed Cipel’s comments.

McGreevey now works for the New Jersey Reentry Corp., a nonprofit he founded to help formerly incarcerated people reenter society.