2001 Jersey City Mayoral Election

The 2001 Jersey City Mayoral Election, a contest primarily between African American former council president Glenn Cunningham, and then council President and future Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise.

The First Round election resulted in both these men advancing because Cunningham had near unanimous support in the African-American ward F, whilst DeGise had Republican Mayor Bret Schundler's support in Ward D—as he had run on the mayor's slates since 1992.

This left multiple candidates on the outs, most notably neing 1992 & 1993 mayoral runner up, former Freeholder Louis Manzo—who endorsed Cunningham on the basis of their idiological similarities in seeking to help Jersey City's communities and opposing selling the city off.

The Runoff was a contensious one, with Cuningham cririzising DeGise's negative ads & attempting to portray DeGise as someone who would sell Jersey city to the developers who funded his campaign,

as well as DeGise dodging accusations that his scrutiny of cunningham was racially motivated & attacking Cunningham as a weak leader who avoided controversial votes

However, the main theme of the results was that African Americans overwhelmingly favored Cunningham—winning Ward F 11 to 1—eating an environment where without similarly polarized voting elsewhere in Jersey city, DeGise could not win.

As a results, despite DeGise's best efforts to catch up to Cunningham he lost, conceeding to Glenn Cunningham a term that due to an untimely death in 2004 he would unfurtunately be unable to finish.