Gov. Phil Murphy is taking sides in the hotly-contested Democratic primary for Hudson County Sheriff, endorsing Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis against five-term incumbent Frank S. Schillari.
“As Mayor of Bayonne, he has successfully brought down crime while addressing long-standing fiscal challenges,” Murphy stated. “I know he’ll be an effective sheriff focused on keeping Hudson County residents safe.”
Davis, a former Bayonne police officer and Hudson County Prosecutor’s office detective, is running with the support of the Hudson County Democratic Organization, while Schillari is on a ticket allied with gubernatorial candidate Steve Fulop, the mayor of Jersey City.
Murphy has a history of wading into Hudson primaries: he endorsed Assemblyman Gabriel Rodriguez (D-West New York) and businessman Larry Wainstein in the 33rd district earlier this month. In 2023, he backed Albio Sires, who had just retired from Congress, in a bid to return to his old job as mayor of West New York. All three had the backing of a close Murphy ally, Union City Mayor/State Sen. Brian P. Stack.
The winner of the Democratic primary is highly likely to win the general election; Republicans haven’t won a sheriff’s race in Hudson County since John Kaiser flipped the seat in 1905. Hudson had a GOP sheriff as recently as 2010 when Democrats dumped incumbent Juan Perez and replaced him with Schillari. Perez switched parties and ran as a Republican; Schillari beat him by 26,905 votes, a 65%-32% margin. Perez has returned to the Democrats and is now a Bayonne councilman.
Perez defeated incumbent Sheriff Joseph Cassidy in the 2007 Democratic primary by 972 votes, 49.5% to 47.7% in a four-candidate race. Two years later, Cassidy ran for Jersey City councilman and lost badly.
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