Jacob Frey

Mayor of Minneapolis since 2018

8 min read

Jacob Lawrence Frey (born July 23, 1981) is an American politician and attorney who has served since 2018 as the 48th mayor of Minneapolis. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, he served on the Minneapolis City Council from 2014 to 2018 and was elected mayor of Minneapolis in 2017 and reelected in 2021 and 2025.

Born and raised in Northern Virginia, Frey attended the College of William & Mary on a track and field scholarship. He later attended law school at Villanova University.

Frey was a distance runner in college and ran professionally, ranking in prominent races and receiving an athletic endorsement. After law school, he moved to Minneapolis, where he worked as an employment discrimination and civil rights lawyer before entering politics.

Early life and education

Frey was born in Arlington County, Virginia, to a Jewish family. He grew up in nearby Oakton, a suburb of Washington, D.C., where his parents, Christopher and Jamie (née Goldstein) Frey were professional modern ballet dancers. His mother is of Russian Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry, and his father converted to Judaism. Frey attended Oakton High School. then the College of William & Mary, receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2004. While attending William & Mary, he was a distance runner on the track and field team and all-Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) cross-country runner. He competed at the 2002 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships. Frey won the 2002 CAA 5,000-meter title in track.

Career

After graduating from college, Frey received a contract from a shoe company to run professionally. He ran in several marathons across the country and competed for Team USA in the 2007 Pan American Games marathon, finishing in fourth place and with his personal record marathon time of 2:16:44. In 2008 he competed in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, with a time of 2:18.19.

Frey moved to Minneapolis in 2009 after graduating cum laude from the Villanova University School of Law and joined the law firm Faegre & Benson to practice employment discrimination and civil rights law before moving on to the law firm Halunen & Associates. Frey gave his graduating class's commencement speech.

In late 2011, Frey ran in a special election for an open state senate seat and came in fifth in the party primary, ahead only of someone who had dropped out of the race.

In 2012, Frey founded and organized the first Big Gay Race, a 5K charity race to raise money for Minnesotans United for All Families, a political group organizing for marriage equality.

Frey ran in the 2013 Minneapolis City Council election to represent Ward 3. He received the Democratic–Farmer–Labor endorsement, as well as endorsements from more than 40 elected officials and organizations. His platform promised better constituent services, to spur residential development, increase the number and variety of small and local businesses, push for full funding of affordable housing, and address climate change. He defeated incumbent Diane Hofstede with more than 60% of the vote and took office on January 2, 2014. He served one term on the Minneapolis City Council before becoming mayor.

Mayoral tenure

Frey announced his candidacy for mayor of Minneapolis in January 2017, campaigning on a platform of increasing support for affordable housing and improving police-community relations. He won the 2017 election, making him Minneapolis's second Jewish mayor and its second-youngest after Al Hofstede, who was 34 when he was elected in 1973.

Frey was reelected with 56.2% of the vote in 2021, defeating challenger Kate Knuth in the final round of ranked-choice voting. He is the first mayor to serve under the "strong mayor" system, a power reorganization that changed the city council from a governing body to a legislative body and gave the mayor direct control over 11 city departments. The change was approved as a charter amendment by ballot measure in 2021. Frey campaigned in favor of the strong mayor system.

Since the strong mayor system was implemented, Frey has issued eight executive orders. The first one established Minneapolis as a safe haven for reproductive rights and healthcare after Roe v. Wade was overturned.

In 2024, Frey set a record for vetoes issued in a year—eight, with four sustained. Vetoed legislation included a resolution on the Israel-Palestine conflict, a minimum wage for ride share drivers, a statement in support of amnesty for student protesters who damaged University of Minnesota property, and a charter for a labor relations board to advise the city council on labor issues. The City Council rejected Frey’s own proposal for a ride share driver minimum wage and put forward a different version, after which Uber and Lyft threatened to cease serving the metropolitan area. A later state law, which is currently in effect, is nearly identical to Frey's ordinance.

In March 2022, Frey fired a senior policy aide, Abdi Salah, after learning he was being investigated in connection with the Feeding Our Futures fraud investigation. Frey said he was unaware of Salah's activities, which included giving Frey talking points written by the organization's leader, Aimee Bock, for an event hosted for multiple elected officials.

In January 2025, Frey announced his intention to run for a third term, saying it would be his last mayoral campaign. On July 19, the Minneapolis DFL endorsed state senator Omar Fateh over Frey. On August 21, in response to an appeal filed by Frey's campaign, the state DFL revoked the endorsement, citing issues with the city convention process, including an undercount of votes and the erroneous elimination of candidate DeWayne Davis.

In October 2025, it was reported that Frey uses one cellular phone for both personal and government business. Additionally, Frey was unable to fulfill records requests for governmental phone records between October 23 and October 28, the period immediately after the high-profile shooting of Davis Moturi, and those relating to a June 2025 Department of Homeland Security raid when there was substantial evidence to suggest pertinent communication had occurred. By Minnesota state law, city officials are allowed to delete "transitory" communications, but the term is not defined.

In December 2025, Frey responded to the expanded presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis by signing an executive order banning federal officials from using city property for staging areas.

In January 2026, Frey dismissed a Department of Homeland Security claim that the shooting of a woman by an ICE agent was done in self-defense, calling it "bullshit". He also told ICE agents to "get the fuck out of Minneapolis" and criticized the Trump administration's decision to block the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from investigating the shooting. He also criticized a second ICE-involved shooting that took place on January 14, calling the ICE deployment to Minneapolis "unsustainable" and saying it put Minneapolis in an "impossible situation" while also urging that protests be peaceful.

Political positions

Infrastructure

In March 2020, Frey approved the purchase of a long vacant K-Mart building on Nicollet Avenue that blocked the road and created transit issues between Lake Street and 29th Street. Upon announcing the acquisition, Frey put forward the New Nicollet initiative, with the stated goal of creating new businesses, housing and public spaces.

In 2022, Frey submitted his version of the Hennepin Avenue Redesign, an extension of the Transportation Action Plan that updates Hennepin Avenue between Lake St. and Douglas Ave. The City Council amended the redesign plan, adding language that would make the existing bus lane exclusive to buses 24/7. Frey vetoed that amendment. His veto was later sustained and he facilitated a compromise that dedicates the lane to buses during rush hour and adds an above-grade bike lane.

Frey has championed the idea of turning Nicollet Mall into a "pedestrian utopia" by rerouting bus traffic (car traffic is already prohibited) to neighboring streets and encouraging social programming. He has also supported open-container "social districts" in the city and attempts to turn underutilized downtown office buildings into housing.

Voting rights and access

As chair of the council's Elections Committee, Frey led the effort to pass an ordinance requiring landlords to give tenants voter registration information. The ordinance has served as a national model, with cities like Seattle and St. Paul following suit. A federal district court judge later struck down the ordinance as unconstitutional. Frey also led the effort to expand early voting access in Minneapolis ahead of the 2016 election, increasing the number of early voting sites in Minneapolis from one to five.