Jacob Frey

Jacob Lawrence Frey (born July 23, 1981) is an American politician and attorney who has served as the mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota since 2018.

He competed at the 2002 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships.

Frey won the 2002 CAA 5,000-meter title in track.

Frey graduated from William & Mary in 2004 with a Bachelor of Arts in government.

After graduation, Frey received a contract from a shoe company to run professionally.

Competing in marathons across the country, he was a member of Team USA at the 2007 Pan American Games.

After law school, Frey moved to Minneapolis to work as an employment discrimination and civil rights lawyer.

Before entering politics, he was also a community organizer.

He ran in several marathons across the country and competed for Team USA in the 2007 Pan American Games marathon, finishing in fourth place.

Frey also pursued a Juris Doctor at the Villanova University School of Law, graduating cum laude in 2009 and giving the student address at commencement.

Frey moved to Minneapolis in 2009 after graduating from law school and joined the law firm Faegre & Benson (now Faegre Drinker) to practice employment discrimination and civil rights law before moving on to the law firm Halunen & Associates.

Frey has been active in community causes since moving to Minneapolis.

After a tornado struck North Minneapolis in 2011, Frey provided legal services to tenants who lost their homes.

In late 2011, Frey ran in a special election for an open state senate seat and came in fifth in the party primary.

The only candidate he finished ahead of had dropped out of the race before election day.

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 was elected to the Minneapolis City Council in 2013, representing Ward 3.

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.

Frey's platform promised better constituent services, to spur residential development, increase the number and variety of small and local businesses, and push for full funding of affordable housing and address climate change.

A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, he served on the Minneapolis City Council from 2014 to 2018.

Born and raised in Virginia, Frey attended the College of William & Mary on a track and field scholarship.

Graduating with a degree in government, he went on to attend law school at Villanova University.

While at Villanova, Frey became a professional distance runner.

He defeated incumbent Diane Hofstede with more than 60% of the vote and took office on January 2, 2014.

As a City Council member, Frey focused on affordable housing, environmental policy, workplace regulations, and voting access.

He authored an amendment to the 2015 budget that increased funding for the city's Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

In 2016, Frey authored an ordinance requiring polluters to pay fees based on the amount of pollution they produce.

The fees are used to support green business improvements.

Since the program's launch, emissions linked to climate change have declined substantially.

Frey was involved in drafting the council's 2016 paid sick leave ordinance and the 2017 minimum wage ordinance.

He was one of the first council members to support a minimum wage ordinance.

Frey authored the amendment to the minimum wage ordinance that gave small businesses a longer phase-in than large businesses for implementing the minimum wage.

Serving only one term, he ran for mayor in 2017, defeating incumbent Betsy Hodges.

He was reelected in 2021.

Frey's political positions are considered progressive.

He has supported affordable housing initiatives, enacting police reform, addressing climate change, and fostering economic inclusion.

Frey grew up in Oakton, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. His parents were both professional modern ballet dancers; his mother is of Russian Jewish ancestry, and his father converted to Judaism.

After graduating from Oakton High School in Vienna, Virginia, Frey attended the College of William & Mary, where he was a distance runner on the track and field team and all-Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) cross-country runner.

Frey and the City of Minneapolis were honored at the 2018 U.S. Conference of Mayors for the program's success.