Bret Schundler

While Schundler never announced himself as a Republican on his campaign literature or ads, he was known to be a Republican based on his campaign for the State Senate a year earlier, and was thus considered the first Republican to occupy the mayoral office in Jersey City since 1917.

Contributing to his victory was the fact that two African American candidates split the black vote, and two siblings, Lou and Allen Manzo, also split a large number of votes.

Once in office, Schundler developed a reputation as a politician who was incorruptible, which strongly resonated in a city with a long legacy of corruption dating to the Frank Hague era in local politics.

Bret Davis Schundler (born January 14, 1959) is an American politician from New Jersey who served as the 42nd mayor of Jersey City from 1992 to 2001.

He remains the last Republican to hold that office.

Indeed, on the same night as Schundler's special election victory, Bill Clinton carried Hudson County (which includes Jersey City) by an overwhelming margin, which was enough to swing New Jersey into the Democratic column for the first time since 1964.

He graduated with honors in 1981.

Schundler's ethnic heritage is German and Barbadian.

Following his graduation from college, Schundler worked for Democratic Congressman Roy Dyson of Maryland.

Earlier in his life, Schundler was a Democrat, and the State Coordinator in New Jersey for Gary Hart's 1984 campaign for President.

He then served as the chief operating officer of The King's College, a Christian liberal arts college in New York City.

He later worked for Gary Hart's 1984 presidential campaign.

After Hart lost the nomination race, Schundler began his career in finance in the sales department of Salomon Brothers.

While he had no experience in the field, his interviewer thought that anyone who could sell Hart in western Iowa had a future in finance.

In 1987, he moved to a different firm, C. J. Lawrence, which has since been absorbed into Deutsche Bank, where he did very well financially.

He retired in 1990, and after traveling around the world for a year, changed his registration to Republican.

He later said that he felt the Democratic Party had been taken captive by special interests.

His first run for elective office was an unsuccessful campaign for the New Jersey Senate in 1991, where despite the partisan nature of the election, and overwhelmingly Democratic composition of the district (only 6% of voters were registered Republicans), Schundler lost to incumbent Edward T. O'Connor, Jr. by only a 55.1% to 44.9% margin.

The next year, Gerald McCann was removed as mayor of Jersey City because of a criminal conviction unrelated to his public duties, and Schundler entered the special election to finish the remaining eight months of McCann's term.

He won the election with 17 percent of the vote, in a crowded field of 19 candidates.

Like most major cities in New Jersey, Jersey City elections are officially nonpartisan.

He subsequently won a full term in 1993 with 69% of the vote—the largest margin of victory since Jersey City returned to the Mayor-Council form of government in 1961, and according to some sources, in the city's entire history.

Clinton carried Hudson County by an even larger margin in 1996.

He won his second full term in 1997, winning a run-off election by a substantial margin.

During his tenure as mayor, Schundler reduced crime, lowered property taxes, increased the city's tax collection rate and property values, instituted medical savings accounts for city employees and privatized the management of the city's water utility.

He also led the battle to pass New Jersey's charter school legislation.

Moreover, according to a Harvard University study, during his tenure Jersey City led the 100 largest cities in the United States in job growth and poverty reduction.

The redevelopment and gentrification of waterfront Jersey City opposite lower Manhattan had begun during

the McCann era, but it grew markedly during Schundler's tenure because of his policies, raising the per capita income in the city.

It also helped stimulate the redevelopment and gentrification of neighboring Hoboken, also on the Hudson River opposite Manhattan.

Schundler attracted considerable national attention because he was the Republican mayor of an overwhelmingly Democratic city.

During his tenure, Jersey City remained a Democratic stronghold, as it has been for over a century.

He also unsuccessfully ran for Governor of New Jersey in 2001 and 2005.

Additionally, no Republican has represented a significant portion of Jersey City in Congress in over a century, and Schundler was succeeded by a Democrat, Glenn Cunningham, in 2001.

Toward the end of his tenure as mayor, Schundler served as chairman of the Hudson County Republican Committee, and in 2001, he ran for the Republican gubernatorial nomination, facing former Congressman Bob Franks, who was favored by the party establishment.

Franks entered the race in April, two months before the primary, after Governor Donald DiFrancesco dropped out of the race because of a series of news stories regarding his alleged unethical behavior.

He served in the cabinet of Governor Chris Christie as New Jersey commissioner of education from January to August 2010, when he was dismissed.

Schundler grew up in Woodbridge Township and Westfield, New Jersey as the youngest of nine children.

At Westfield High School, he was an All-State football player.

He was recruited by Harvard University, where, to help pay for his tuition, he washed dishes, cleaned bathrooms, and worked as a security guard.