North Bergen Mayor Nicholas Sacco has quietly informed close political allies that he is considering resigning early next year to put his preferred succession plan in place ahead of the May 2027 nonpartisan municipal election, the New Jersey Globe has learned.
Sacco’s tentative plan is to back Commissioner Hugo Cabrera for mayor and install his son, Nicholas Sacco, Jr., an elementary school principal in North Bergen, as his replacement for township commissioner.
Another possibility, the New Jersey Globe has learned, is that Sacco would step down as mayor but serve the remainder of his term as commissioner. Under that scenario, Sacco, Jr. would be a candidate for an open seat next year.
Sacco’s spokesman, Phil Swibinski, pointed to the mayor’s record during more than 40 years in public office, including “making the community safer, stronger and more affordable.”
“At this time, Mayor Sacco has not yet reached a decision regarding next year’s municipal election, and he plans to announce his intentions in the coming months,” said Swibinski.
What Sacco will likely seek to avoid is a special November 2026 election for a commissioner seat. That means he would not leave his seat until at least September, when a replacement could be appointed without the encumbrance of voter involvement.
The move could eliminate infighting within the Sacco organization between Cabrera and another township commissioner, Anthony Vainieri, a former Hudson County Democratic chairman and county commissioner who had been angling for the mayoral post. North Bergen has a population of over 63,000, roughly 71% of whom are Hispanic, and some think Sacco is the last white mayor.
Cabrera, the North Bergen school board secretary, has served as a commissioner since 1999.
Assemblyman Larry Wainstein (D-North Bergen), a close political ally of Union City Mayor/State Sen. Brian P. Stack, is also considered a possible candidate for mayor. He challenged Sacco in 2015, 2019, and 2023.
Stack is unopposed for re-election in next week’s non-partisan municipal election; Sacco has not endorsed him – other Democratic mayors in Hudson have – but Cabrera is backing him.
“I absolutely support him 100%,” Cabrera told the New Jersey Globe. “He’s doing a great job in Union City and as our senator.”
Asked if he was backing Stack for re-election to the Senate next year, Cabrera said, “I don’t see why I wouldn’t. He’s really the clear choice.”
Last year, Sacco and Vainieri endorsed Republican Jack Ciattarelli for governor against the winner, Democrat Mikie Sherrill. Cabrera stopped short of taking sides in the general election – North Bergen was with Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop in the Democratic primary – but he did back Republicans for State Assembly in the 33rd district against Stack’s team: incumbent Gabriel Rodriguez (D-West New York) and Wainstein, and the GOP nominee for sheriff against Democrat Jimmy Davis; Davis defeated Sacco’s candidate, incumbent Francis Schillari, in the Democratic primary.
Sacco’s once-potent political organization has floundered in recent years: it produced an unimpressive 215-vote plurality for Fulop over Sherrill last year, and just an 858-vote win, 56%- 44%, for Schillari over Davis.
The worst news for Sacco came in the 33rd district Assembly race, where his candidates barely won North Bergen: Tony Hector, a landlord who mostly self-funded his race, received 3,627 votes, followed by his running mate, Frank Alonso (3,490). Businessman Larry Wainstein, who has run against Sacco for township commissioner three times, received 3,476 votes – fourteen behind Alonso, at least according to unofficial numbers. Assemblyman Gabriel Rodriguez received 3,292 votes in North Bergen.
In comparison, Stack’s Union City produced a 6,398-vote margin for Sherrill, who led Fulop, 68%-9%. Davis won Union City by 5,977 votes, 80%-20%. In the Assembly race, Rodriguez (8,242) and Wainstein (7,193) won over Hector (1,607) and Alonso (1,504).
Despite Sacco’s endorsement of Ciattarelli in the general election, Sherrill won North Bergen by 35 percentage points; Sherrill won Union City by 69 points. And notwithstanding Team Sacco’s support of GOP legislative candidates in 2025, Wainstein won North Bergen by 4,656 votes.
The 79-year-old Sacco has served as mayor since 1991.
When Sacco decided he wanted the 32nd district Senate seat in 1993, two years after he became mayor of North Bergen, he just took it.
The incumbent was Thomas Cowan of the Operating Engineers union, a likable survivor of Hudson political battles who had spent six years in the Assembly and ten in the Senate. His political career began in 1977, when a seismic realignment of Jersey City led to the defeats of two State Senators and two Assembly members.
Jersey City Mayor Paul Jordan was challenging Gov. Brendan Byrne in the June Democratic primary. In May, Thomas F.X. Smith beat Jordan’s hand-picked successor, Bill Macchi, by a 54%-26% margin. With the Hudson lemmings all currying favor with the new mayor, Jordan’s campaign collapsed, and he dropped out.
Cowan ran for the Assembly in 1977 on a ticket with future Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski as part of an organization line put together by Smith before the April filing date, just in case he won. Under the banner “Regular Democratic Party Against the Income Tax” – a not-too-subtle slap at Byrne – former Assemblyman David Friedland (D-Jersey City) beat incumbent State Sen. Joseph Tumulty (D-Jersey City), with Cowan and Janiszewski ousting incumbents Michael Esposito and Alina Miszkiewicz, both from Jersey City.
After Friedland’s criminal conviction, the 1981 redistricting put Harrison into the 32nd. The State Senator was Frank Rodgers, the long-time (48 years) Mayor of Harrison. Cowan went to the Senate in 1983 when Jersey City Mayor Gerry McCann wanted the Senate seat back. He cut a deal for Rodgers to run for Hudson County Clerk instead.
1983 was a warette year in Hudson: Cowan won the Senate seat by a 58%-42% margin against Jersey City Councilman Anthony Cucci. (Cucci ran for mayor two years later and took out McCann.) That was the year McCann dumped Janiszewski and brought in North Bergen Commissioner Anthony Vainieri – the father of Assemblywoman Valerie Huttle and Hudson Freeholder Anthony Vainieri — and former Jersey City Council President Paul Cuprowski. McCann was on the wrong side of the Mocco Brothers of North Bergen, who backed Cucci and Janiszewski, along with former Assemblyman Theodore DiGiammo (D-North Bergen). Janiszewski lost renomination to his Assembly seat by 3,000 votes.
Cuprowski and Vainieri were both one-term Assemblymen. In the 1985 Tom Kean landslide, Republicans Frank Gargiulo – a longtime North Bergen Commissioner and loyal Sacco lieutenant who retired in 2023 – and Charles Catrillo beat the incumbents.
Four years later came the actual Hudson War – a Democratic primary for County Executive between incumbent Ed Clark and challenger Janiszewski – that included full slates for State Senate, Assembly, and Freeholder. Cowan supported Janiszewski and ran off the line against Cuprowski, the pick of Hudson County Democratic Chairman Dennis Collins – and more importantly, of the Mocco Brothers. Cowan won, but by just 529 votes.
Republicans believed the War of 1987 and Cowan’s razor-thin primary win might make him vulnerable in the general. Cowan’s opponent was Catrillo, the freshman Republican Assemblyman, and the NJGOP allocated tremendous financial resources to flip a Hudson State Senate seat for the first time since before Frank Hague.
In the end, it wasn’t close. With the realignment of Hudson loyalties after Janiszewski’s win, Cowan scored a decisive 2-1 victory over Catrillo. Cowan won 90% in the 1991 Democratic primary and survived a closer-than-expected 57%-39% win over Republican Guy Catrillo (Charlie’s brother) in the Jim Florio Republican landslide.
That was Cowan’s final win. In 1993, Sacco decided he wanted to be a Senator.
Sacco entered North Bergen politics in 1985, when he was elected to the Board of Commissioners. Sacco, a 38-year-old public school principal, was taken under the wing of Mayor Leo Gattoni, Sr.
(Gattoni first ran for local office in North Bergen in 1949, in opposition to Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague. Five years later, while serving as a Hudson County Deputy Sheriff, Gattoni served Hague with a subpoena to appear before a grand jury at a Jersey City funeral home, where Hague was attending his nephew’s wake.)
Gattoni convinced the Mocco Brothers to put Sacco on the ticket, even though they didn’t really want him. When a scandal finally took the Mocco Brothers down, Gattoni was persuaded to step aside in 1991 and let Sacco be Mayor.
Using the clout of the North Bergen mayoralty, Sacco forged an alliance with Union City – then-Rep. Bob Menendez and Mayor Bruce Walter, the Hudson County Democratic Chairman, challenged Cowan for the Senate. Cowan refused to retire, and Sacco beat him in the Democratic primary by 7,046 votes – 67% to 33%.
Sacco walked away from the Senate in 2023 rather than battle Stack in the Democratic primary.