Tom DeGees has not yet announced whether he will run for re-election in 2023 for another term in the post he has held since 2002, but there are significant speculations that he is considering retirement.
If DeGees decides to end a successful political career that began with his election as a Jersey City council member in 1993, several Hudson County Democrats have confirmed that his longtime chief of staff Craig Guy would be the logical choice to change him.
Guy, a longtime insider in Jersey City and Hudson County, will only be involved if DeGise doesn’t. But when he seeks the post, several Democrat sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, have confirmed that Guy is likely to become the leader of the Democratic organizational line.
DeGees, who turns 72 on election day 2023, was also thinking about retiring before four Hudson mayors tried to oust him in the winter of 2018, fifteen months before the Democratic primary. When he was told he was being expelled, DeGees regrouped and elected his daughter Amy, who was then a member of the Jersey City School Board, chair of the County Democratic Party.
Until 2019, DeGise had no opposition for re-nomination.
Amy DeGees won a seat on the Jersey City Council in 2021.
After eight years as president of the Jersey City Council, DeGees ran for mayor in 2001 and lost in the second round to Glenn Cunningham by a small margin of 53% -47%.
The following year, DeGese was elected head of the constituency in an early election for the term of office of district executive director Robert Janiszewski. Janiszewski abruptly resigned in 2001 and later pleaded guilty to federal charges of corruption.
He was elected for a full term in 2003 and was re-elected four times.
