Jeremiah Wilson "Jay" Nixon (born February 13, 1956 in De Soto, Missouri) is the current Governor of the U.S. state of Missouri. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as Missouri's Attorney General before his election in 2008. Nixon holds both graduate and undergraduate law degrees from the University of Missouri in Columbia.

He made his first bid for statewide office in 1988, an unsuccessful effort to oust incumbent U.S. Senator John Danforth. Nixon was defeated by Danforth, winning 32% of the vote compared to Danforth's 68%. Nixon was first elected as Missouri's Attorney General on November 3, 1992, on a platform of fighting crime, cleaning up government corruption, and protecting consumers and the environment. Nixon followed William L. Webster as Attorney General. The 1992 race for Attorney General between Nixon and former State House Minority Leader David Steelman was especially heated; however Nixon beat Steelman 51% to 45%, with an unusually high 4% of the votes going to the Libertarian candidate.

Nixon was re-elected as Attorney General by a wide margin in 1996, and in 1998 he again made an unsuccessful run for U.S. Senate, this time losing to incumbent Republican Kit Bond. In 2000 and 2004 Nixon was again re-elected as Attorney General, both times by similarly wide margins.