Rebecca Bennett won New Jersey’s most expensive primary race Tuesday, becoming the Democratic nominee to face Republican Tom Kean Jr. — who has not been seen in months — in an election with potential to help switch the House from GOP control.
The Associated Press called Bennett’s race, one of two closely watched Democratic primaries, about an hour after polls closed at 8 p.m. She led second-place finisher Tina Shah by at least 27 points.
The four New Jersey Democratic House incumbents who faced primaries easily won their nominations.
The Associated Press called the races between 8:12 p.m. and 8:35 p.m.
Voters in the 12th District, where Democrat Bonnie Watson Coleman is retiring after six terms, chose surgeon Adam Hamawy as the Democratic nominee from a field of 12. The AP called the race for Hamawy, the most progressive of the candidates, at 9:36 p.m. when he had captured close to 28% of the vote.
The House primaries centered largely on President Donald Trump and his policies on tariffs, immigration enforcement and the war with Iran.
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker faced no opposition in his Democratic primary. Republican Justin Murphy bested three competitors for their party’s nomination. New Jersey hasn’t sent a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 1972.
Voters chose candidates for November races that will determine control of Congress. Republicans dominate the Senate and House and largely support Trump’s agenda. In the most recent New Jersey survey on Trump, in March, the president scored 26% approval.
7th District
Central Jersey’s 7th District, represented by Kean, is among a dozen or so districts nationwide with broad interest: The seats are occupied by Republicans, and political analysts consider the races toss-ups.
Kean, who has not voted in Washington or held a public event in almost three months due to an unspecified health issue, cast a ballot by mail this election. Kean’s absence in the Capitol and his support for Trump — who endorsed him as “working tirelessly” and a “Tremendous Advocate of our America First Agenda” — will likely be issues in the general election.
“Tom Kean Jr., we are coming for you,” Bennett told supporters at her campaign headquarters in Bridgewater.
“Wherever you are, you have failed this district. You were the deciding vote on the ‘one big beautiful bill,’ which is going to take healthcare away from tens of thousands of people in our district,” Bennett said. “You were nowhere to be found when Donald Trump started another forever war in the Middle East. You were nowhere to be found when DHS tried to put an ICE detention facility in Roxbury and you were nowhere to be found when Trump held up the funding for the Gateway Tunnel. Simply put, you are a coward.”
The 7th District was the most expensive New Jersey congressional primary this year. Candidates spent more than $8 million of at least $14 million raised through May, an NJ Spotlight News analysis found.
Dark money groups also tried to influence the Democratic primary. Real Change PAC spent close to $650,000 through May 29 in opposition of Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot and frontrunner in the 7th District race’s only independent poll. Real Change PAC is an independent committee with a Nebraska address and appears to support Republicans. Its expenditures included television and internet ads and mailers, including one delivered to homes on Monday with a doctored photo of Bennett in a Make America Great Again hat and with text reading, “Just say no to Rebecca Bennett.”
Bennett, a moderate Democrat along the lines of Gov. Mikie Sherrill, was a registered Republican who switched parties, she said, after Trump came to power. She had the backing of the Democratic parties in four of six counties: Hunterdon, Morris, Somerset and Union. Brian Varela, a small business owner from Long Valley, was endorsed by the Sussex and Warren county parties. Michael Roth, a former official with the U.S. Small Business Administration from Westfield, and Tina Shah, a physician from Westfield, were the other candidates.
Credit: (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah; Tina Shah campaign)12th District
Registered Democrats dominate in the 12th District, which includes parts of Mercer, Middlesex and Somerset counties. A lone Republican was on the ballot alongside 12 Democrats.
Hamawy was the biggest fundraiser, with a $1.4 million campaign account. A super PAC called American Priorities, formed this year to counter spending by pro-Israel independent groups, spent almost $1.6 million on ads supporting Hamawy.
Credit: (Adam Hamawy campaign)Hamawy, a Princeton resident, is a surgeon and combat veteran credited with saving the life of Army soldier Tammy Duckworth — now a Democratic U.S. senator from Illinois — when she was critically injured during battle in Iraq in 2004. He was endorsed by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and some of the most progressive members of Congress. He drew criticism, though, for his onetime association with the late Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy related to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Other prominent candidates included Sue Altman, the former state director for U.S. Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) who lost the 7th District election two years ago; East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen; Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp; state Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson; Somerset County Commissioner Shanel Robinson; and Princeton University professor Sam Wang.
Democratic incumbents who faced nominal primary challenges included Frank Pallone in the 6th District, Rob Menendez in the 8th District, LaMonica McIver in the 10th District and Analilia Mejia in the 11th District. The state’s two other House Democrats, Donald Norcross in the 1st District and Josh Gottheimer in the 5th District, faced no primary challengers.
Heading to the November general election, Booker has a formidable campaign account: He has raised more than $32 million, the third-largest amount of any Senate candidate, and had almost $23 million in the bank as of May 13. The four Republicans competing in the primary raised less than $220,000 combined.
About 385,000 people had voted early, by mail and in-person, as of Monday night. That’s about 50,000 more than the number who voted early in 2024, where a high turnout was expected because of the presidential race. Close to eight in 10 early voters were Democrats.
