Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis easily won his race for Hudson County Sheriff, defeating Republican Elvis Alvarez by a 72%-24% margin.
Davis will take office on January 1; his election will create a vacancy in the office of mayor of Bayonne, which will be filled by the city council on an interim basis. Davis, a three-term mayor, was up for re-election in the May 2026 non-partisan municipal election, so the interim mayor will serve until July 1 of next year.
His victory over Alvarez preserves a winning 120-year winning streak for Hudson County Democrats; the last Republican to hold the post was John Kaisr, who won in 1905.
Davis ousted five-term incumbent Frank Schillari in the Democratic primary.
Schillari, caught in the middle of a war between Hudson Democratic factions aligned with Union City Mayor Brian Stack and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, decided to stick with Fulop, bucking the county party.
After a nasty campaign full of ad hominems, it was the Stack faction that came out on top. Schillari held onto his base in Secaucus and North Bergen and made some remarkable headway with Jersey City progressives who proved willing to vote for a conservative-leaning septuagenarian as a middle finger to the county organization — but Davis, riding off support in his home of Bayonne and Stack’s home of Union City, won 53% to 46%.
Schillari, who quit the Democratic Party entirely over the summer and said he’d be supporting Jack Ciattarelli for governor. This isn’t the first time a sheriff switched parties: Juan Perez, the Democrat pushed aside to make way for Schillari fifteen years ago, also defected to the GOP; now Perez is back as a Democrat and serving as a Bayonne city councilman, where he’s a Davis ally.
