Tom DeGise has not yet announced if he will run for re-election in 2023 for another term in the job he’s held since 2002, but there is considerable speculation that he is considering retirement.
If DeGise decides to end a successful political career that began with his election as a city councilman in Jersey City in 1993, multiple Hudson County Democrats have confirmed that his longtime chief of staff, Craig Guy, would be the logical choice to succeed him.
Guy, a longtime insider in Jersey City and Hudson County, would only run if DeGise does not. But if he does seek the post, several Democrats sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed that Guy would likely emerge as the front-runner for the Democratic organization line.
DeGise, who will be 72 on Election Day 2023, had also mulled retirement before four Hudson mayors tried to push him out during the winter of 2018, fifteen months before the Democratic primary. One he was told that he was being forced out, DeGise regrouped and elected his daughter, Amy, then a Jersey City school board member, as the Democratic county chair.
By 2019, DeGise had no opposition for re-nomination.
Amy DeGise won an at-large Jersey City council seat in 2021.
After eight years as Jersey City council president, DeGise ran for mayor in 2001 and lost a runoff to Glenn Cunningham by a narrow 53%-47% margin.
The following year, DeGise was elected county executive in a special election for the unexpired term of County Executive Robert Janiszewski. Janiszewski had suddenly resigned in 2001 and later plead guilty to federal corruption charges.
He was elected to a full term in 2003 and re-elected four times.
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