Jim McGreevey’s campaign to become the next mayor of Jersey City raised just over $500,000 in the 1st quarter of 2024, another huge fundraising haul for the former governor seeking to make a political comeback.
On top of the $868,000 he amassed during the first two months of his campaign last year, McGreevey has now raised a total of nearly $1.4 million in his campaign to lead New Jersey’s second-largest city. (His campaign is still tabulating how much cash on-hand it has left.)
McGreevey has the support of much of the Hudson County Democratic organization in the race to succeed current Mayor Steve Fulop, who is leaving after three terms to run for governor. State Sen./Union City Mayor Brian Stack was McGreevey’s earliest backer, and he has since picked up endorsements from Hudson County Executive Craig Guy, State Sen. Raj Mukherji (D-Jersey City), and a number of powerful unions.
If McGreevey does win next year’s nonpartisan contest, it would be an unusual second act for the former governor, who was born in Jersey City but was based in Middlesex County for most of his political career; he served as mayor of Woodbridge Township for a decade before becoming governor. Now the chairman of the New Jersey Reentry Corporation, he moved back to Jersey City in 2015.
In order to become mayor, though, McGreevey will have to get through a crowded field that already includes two prominent opponents, Hudson County Commissioner Bill O’Dea and City Council President Joyce Watterman, and could soon grow to include several others, among them former Board of Education President Mussab Ali, County Commissioner Jerry Walker, and City Councilman James Solomon.
O’Dea released his own fundraising reports this morning, raising $230,000 in Q1 and ending the quarter with $650,000 in his warchest, much of it coming from his existing county commissioner account. Waterman, who hasn’t yet filed Q1 reports, ended last year with just $17,253 on-hand.