Adam Hamawy, a U.S. Army veteran and sharp critic of Israel’s war in Gaza, beat a large field of Democrats on Tuesday to win a House primary in a left-leaning congressional district in New Jersey.
His victory makes him the heavy favorite in November to replace Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, a progressive Democrat who is retiring from Congress after holding the seat in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District for a decade.
Dr. Hamawy, a plastic surgeon who worked as an Army combat doctor during the Iraq War, was ahead of his closest opponent, Brad Cohen, by about 12 percentage points with roughly 85 percent of ballots tallied, according to The Associated Press. He is expected to compete in November against Gregg Mele, a Republican who has run several long-shot campaigns for office and faces steep odds in a district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans more than two to one.
“You’ve heard throughout this race that I said over and over again: health care, not bombs; to abolish ICE; and to unrig this economy,” Dr. Hamawy told supporters gathered in Princeton, N.J.
“They are solutions to a crisis that was born out of a broken and rigged political and economic system — a system that floods money overseas to bomb children’s schools, while at the same time says that child care here in America is pie in the sky,” he added.
Dr. Hamawy, a first-time candidate, owns a cosmetic surgery practice in Princeton. One reason he jumped into the race, he said, was a sense of feeling ignored by Washington lawmakers when he tried to discuss the devastation he witnessed during a 2024 humanitarian mission to the European Hospital in southern Gaza.
Last March, he was Ms. Watson Coleman’s guest at President Trump’s joint address to Congress. Ms. Watson Coleman did not make an endorsement in Tuesday’s 12-person primary. But she has praised Dr. Hamawy, a 56-year-old father of four, for his “selflessness and bravery” and his ability to “speak with unimpeachable authority on the suffering of the Palestinian people.”
In Congress, Dr. Hamawy has said that he would be likely to join a progressive flank of the Democratic Party known as “the squad.” He has advocated universal Medicare coverage and abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. He has called the war in Gaza a genocide and supports halting U.S. military aid to Israel.
Dr. Hamawy’s campaign benefited from endorsements from progressive luminaries like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. (Though both are democratic socialists, Dr. Hamawy is not.) A newly formed pro-Palestinian political action committee also spent more than $1.5 million to boost his candidacy, fueling his early momentum.
“We have voted to build a system that works for working people, not just the elites,” Dr. Hamawy said in a victory address. “In New Jersey, we have proved once and for all that there is no such thing as ‘progressive except for Palestine.’”
During the campaign, Dr. Hamawy faced questions about his alliance three decades ago with Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind militant Islamist who lived and preached in New Jersey. The cleric was convicted in 1995 of inspiring terror attacks, including the first World Trade Center bombing, which killed six people.
Dr. Hamawy, then 26 and in medical school, was called to testify by the sheikh’s defense lawyers during his federal trial in Manhattan. Dr. Hamawy’s testimony undercut a claim made by the government’s star witness, Emad Salem, who was paid $1 million by federal officials while serving as an informant. Mr. Abdel Rahman was sentenced to life in prison and died in 2017.
Dr. Hamawy has since said that he condemns the cleric’s “violent rhetoric and actions.” The doctor, who is Muslim and emigrated with his parents from Egypt as a newborn, has dismissed criticism of his testimony as guilt-by-association innuendo infused with Islamophobia.
“Things got nasty,” he said Tuesday night about the campaign. “My family was attacked. My values were questioned.”
“There once was a time where this might have worked, when racist and anti-Muslim attacks would have turned an election,” he added. “But tonight we proved that this era of American politics is over.”
Dr. Cohen, a gynecologist and the mayor of East Brunswick, was behind Dr. Hamawy by about 8,000 votes three hours after polls closed, according to the A.P. Several other candidates trailed closely behind Dr. Cohen, including Sam Wang, a Princeton University neuroscientist known for his expertise in gerrymandering.
CiCi Hanna, 25, was among the many young voters who gathered in Trenton, N.J., on Saturday for a get-out-the-vote rally for Dr. Hamawy.
She said she had begun volunteering for his campaign soon after learning about him through an email from Justice Democrats, a political action committee that has powered Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s rapid ascent in Congress. Ms. Hanna said she was struck by Dr. Hamawy’s willingness to serve in war zones.
“It was such a strength of moral character that really went beyond political ambitions,” she said, and beyond “just saying the right things to get elected.”
An array of progressive groups quickly praised Dr. Hamawy’s victory on Tuesday and cited it as an indicator of a shifting electorate.
“Voters want a Democratic Party that fights for them, not for the billionaires and corporate donors who rig our politics,” Stephanie Taylor, a founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said in a statement.
Alexandra Rojas, executive director of Justice Democrats, said in a statement that the group was “proud to send New Jersey’s first Justice Democrat to Congress.”
“Dr. Hamawy won this race the old-fashioned way,” Ms. Rojas said. “By outworking his opponents, out-organizing the establishment and building the progressive coalition needed to deliver his people-first vision to New Jersey working families.”
