Third-party candidate begins transition after historic win in mayor’s race
Georgetown
By Madison Sharrock | December 6, 2025
Jay Doyle moved to Georgetown 17 years ago. He was elected mayor last month.
Control of Georgetown City Council has shifted between Republican and Democrats over the past four years, but the city’s new mayor occupies the middle ground.
Jay Doyle was elected last month after running as a candidate of the Forward Party.
Doyle is the first third-party nominee to win a partisan election in South Carolina since 1894, according to the party’s research. He is also the first Forward Party candidate to win election outright rather than as a party affiliate, said Clint Eisenhauer, who chairs the state party.
The party was established in 2022.
Compromise “should not be a dirty word in politics, but it has become that,” Eisenhauer said. “How do you have conversations? How do you move forward in that kind of scenario?”
Eisenhauer helped Doyle with his campaign and said they bonded over the idea of challenging the status quo of a two-party system.
Eisenhauer said the party represents Americans who want additional, better and different choices on the ballot.
“I quickly realized that he embodies the kind of intellectual, data-driven, fact-based approach that we like and we think is the model for collaboration and compromise,” Eisenhauer said. “You basically have two choices. [Voters] want politicians who are going to represent them, not a party machine.”
“We’ve got a very, very broken system,” Doyle said. “Hopefully the Forward Party can emerge quickly and we can do something about it.”
In the meantime, he was due to meet this week with the city administrator to begin his transition from citizen to mayor.
Doyle received 56 percent of the vote in the race with the first-term Republican incumbent, Carol Jayroe. There was no Democratic candidate in the race.
Seventy percent of elections in the U.S. are uncontested, Doyle noted, and the mayor’s race would have been part of that statistic if he hadn’t run.
Jayroe, a Georgetown native, was elected in 2022 as the first woman and Republican mayor in the city’s 296-year history. She served two terms on City Council prior to being elected mayor.
Democrats Sharon Melton, Hobson Henry Milton and Jessie M. Walker led the voting for City Council over incumbent Republicans Jonathan Angner, Jim Clements and Jimmy Morris.
The council now has four Democrats and two Republicians.
South Carolina is one of six states that allow straight-party voting. The Forward Party received 29 straight party votes.
There were 680 straight party votes for the Democrats and 467 for the Republicans.
“It was significant in that it shows that voters are willing to consider other options other than, you know, the red party, the blue party,” Eisenhauer said.
Doyle said he can work with both sides using a “common sense approach.”
“There were a lot of people that didn’t let the party lines stop them. The more momentum we picked up, the more people crossed over,” he said. “We’re not going to agree on everything, but, we’ll be honest and straightforward and work to find a compromise for issues we don’t agree on.”
Marilyn Hemingway, who chairs the county Democratic Party, told Doyle during his campaign that the party could not endorse him but they weren’t going to work against him.
She said that Doyle’s campaign was a way for voters to align the views of the mayor and city council.
“It gave people space who were not quite ready to say, ‘I would vote for a Democrat,’” Hemingway said. “That played a huge part in what happened on Election Day along with all the work that was done.”
“There are very few things in government and in governing that you can find a 100 percent solution that’s going to please everyone,” Eisenhauer added.
Doyle, 67, lives on Front Street with his wife, Suzanne, and their border collie, Ralphie. His stepdaughter, Danielle, works in Boston as a yoga instructor and massage therapist. They moved to the city 17 years ago from Belmont, Mass., where Doyle owned two remodeling and property management companies. He also had a taste of politics when he served on Belmont’s Town Council for a short time.
They found Georgetown by accident, he said.
They first moved to New Bern, N.C., and decided to look elsewhere.
“We couldn’t find anything that compares to it,” he said. “One of the things we love about Georgetown is when you pass by other people, they always say, ‘hi.’”
Doyle believes that his background in businesses makes up for his lack of political experience. He said he doesn’t view being the mayor of Georgetown any different than being a general contractor or even a softball player.
“As a general contractor, you have plumbers, electricians, all the different tradesmen, and you have to coordinate them and bring them all together to get the job done. It’s going to be the same in the city,” he said.
He played softball when he was younger, which taught him to set high expectations and do better than strike out, he said.
“If you step into that batter’s box and you’re hoping you’re not going to strike out, that’s the best you’re going to do,” Doyle said. “If you go into the batter’s box and think, ‘I’m gonna get a home run’ … you’re setting your expectation there. Maybe you only get a single. But at least you got on base.”
The fact that he’s not from Georgetown may have turned away some voters, Doyle said, adding that he would feel the same way if the tables were turned.
“People would rather have someone that knows the city and comes from the city and been here a good, long time. I can’t say I blame them,” Doyle said. “Just because you’re from here doesn’t mean you’re necessarily doing the right thing.”
Eisenhauer agreed and said that it was Doyle’s character that stood out to him that made him an ideal Forward Party candidate. He said he has worked with many politicians in his career who are smart and have good intentions.
The two-party system keeps them from having an impact, he said.
“He’s not a professional politician. He is just a guy who understands relationships. He understands how to solve problems,” he said. Politicians “want to do the right thing. But the system itself is conspiring to keep that from happening.”
Doyle may not have political expertise but he has a passion to make Georgetown better than he found it 17 years ago. The passion began when he learned of a rezoning request on the waterfront for a mixed-use development plan near his home.
“I said, ‘oh no. I can’t just sit down and let this happen,’” Doyle said.
Georgetown is a city made up of the working class, Doyle said, with a median income of $31,000. He considers himself part of that working class.
“Just the direction of the city was going in didn’t really seem to be looking out for the working class people,” he said. “It’s like, what’s going on here?”
He said he’s ready to hit the ground running with his top priority of economic development that will benefit everyone in the city.
“It’s going to be an interesting four years,” Doyle said.