The nation’s first out gay governor is running for office again 20 years after he resigned

The first out gay governor in U.S. history has decided to get back in the game 20 years after his historic resignation. Former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey (D) officially announced today that he is running for mayor of Jersey City in the 2025 election.

His campaign announcement video opens with him watching a clip of his own 2004 resignation in which he declares, “I am a gay American. I engaged in an adult consensual affair. It was wrong, it was foolish, it was inexcusable.”

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“We all have the same needs: a safe home, food, a job of purpose, and the basic human need of love,” says former NJ governor Jim McGreevey.

From there, the present-day McGreevey tells the camera, “I’m imperfect, I’ll always be imperfect,” but that it was important to take accountability for his actions. He said his experiences have made him a better, more compassionate person.

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McGreevey was referring to a scandal that rocked the nation when he had an affair with Golan Cipel, his homeland security advisor. McGreevey had made people suspicious when he hired Cipel, even though he was not qualified and could not obtain federal security clearance. Eventually, as seen in his resignation video, he admitted to the affair after threats from Cipel’s lawyers.

McGreevey’s daughter, Jacqueline, also appears in the campaign video to discuss his work as the founder of the New Jersey Reentry Corporation (NJ RC), a nonprofit agency dedicated to helping formerly incarcerated individuals and war veterans build stable lives.

Jacqueline McGreevey founded the organization in 2014 after working with prisoners as part of his divinity degree. Since its creation, the NJ RC has helped 8,900 formerly incarcerated people find jobs, over 9,000 enroll in addiction treatment and medical assistance programs, and thousands secure housing.

His daughter declared that her dad taught her the importance of second chances. “What’s the point if we just throw everyone away who’s ever made a mistake?” she said.

McGreevey is the only person who has declared his candidacy for mayor thus far. The city’s current mayor, Steven Fulop, is running for governor in 2025.

In a September interview with the New York Times – while he was still considering whether or not he’d run – McGreevey said he had no qualms with the so-called demotion from governor to mayor. “Being governor is so much about the budget, the dollar. Being mayor is about building strong communities.”

One of McGreevey’s main motivations for running is to help Jersey City become more affordable.

“My sense is Jersey City is at a tipping point,” he told the Times, “and it ought to be affordable for those families that have lived in the city for three or four generations.”

In addition to his time as governor, McGreevey served as mayor of Woodbridge Township from 1991 to 2002. He simultaneously served in the state General Assembly from 1990-1992 and in the state Senate from 1994 to 1997.

According to the National Governors Association, during his two-year tenure as New Jersey’s governor, he “closed a $14-billion budget gap, balancing the state budget without raising sales or income taxes.” Among his work on climate change and education, he also invested $8.6 billion over ten years in the largest school construction project in the United States, and in 2003, “signed a landmark auto insurance reform package that changed the way auto insurance companies operate in New Jersey.”