The retirement of Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing) in New Jersey’s 12th congressional district next year means a competitive primary – with no county lines – for a safely Democratic, heavily diverse Central Jersey seat that includes parts of four counties.
Two candidates are definitely in: East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen and Somerset County Commissioner Shanel Robinson (D-Franklin) both announced campaigns shortly after Watson Coleman said she’d retire.
Beyond them, at the top of the list are two local state legislators, State Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D-South Brunswick) and Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson (D-Trenton). The 61-year-old Zwicker has run for the district once before, losing a Democratic primary to Watson Coleman in 2014 (his legislative career began the next year); the 54-year-old Reynolds-Jackson represents the Trenton-based legislative district Watson Coleman once held.
Other possible Democratic contenders include Assemblywoman Linda Carter (D-Plainfield), Assemblywoman Tennille McCoy (D-Hamilton), Middlesex County Commissioner Shanti Narra (D-North Brunswick), Mercer County Commissioner Samuel Frisby (D-Trenton), Middlesex County Surrogate Claribel Cortes, Mercer County Clerk Paula Sollami Covello, Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp, Ewing Councilwoman Sarah Steward (a former staffer for Rush Holt, Watson Coleman’s predecessor), Millstone Mayor Ray Heck (whose town is among the state’s smallest municipalities at population 448), and James Gee, a Democratic strategist who was Watson Coleman’s longtime chief of staff.
It’s also possible that some candidates in the packed Democratic primary for the neighboring 7th congressional district, a swing district held by Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), could make a leap over in the neighboring 12th district; among them is physician Tina Shah, who moved from the 12th district to the 7th earlier this year. Sue Altman, the Democratic nominee for the 7th district in 2024 who’s now Senator Andy Kim’s state director, could look at running as well.
A less-well-known Democrat, fitness studio owner Kyle Little, was already running for the 12th district even before Watson Coleman announced her retirement.
One potential candidate, Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora, told the New Jersey Globe that he is not actively pursuing a congressional bid; a former assemblyman and congressional aide, Gusciora ran for Congress once before, losing to GOP Rep. Chris Smith in 2000.
“I’m just focused on Trenton right now,” said Gusciora, who is widely expected to seek a third term as mayor in the November 2026 nonpartisan municipal election.
The 12th district is extremely racially diverse at around 40% white, 22% Hispanic, 19% Asian, and 16% Black; the Democratic primary electorate – the real contest in the safely blue district – is likely even more diverse than that. Watson Coleman was the first Black woman to represent New Jersey in Congress, and remained the only congresswoman of color in the state’s history until Nellie Pou and LaMonica McIver were elected last year.
The district is also geographically varied, spanning four different counties – Mercer, Middlesex, Somerset, and Union – each of which has some local politicians likely to be interested in the seat. It’s possible that the Democratic primary to succeed Watson Coleman will be fought along geographical lines.
That’s what happened in 2014, when Rep. Rush Holt (D-Hopewell) retired. Watson Coleman, State Sen. Linda Greenstein (D-Plainsboro), and Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula (D-Franklin) all ran for the district with party support in their home counties; Watson Coleman, who also earned the support of Union County Democrats (who didn’t have a hometown candidate of their own), beat Greenstein by 5,514 votes, 43% to 28%.
Zwicker, who got fourth place in that primary, could start out a 2026 race with an interesting geographical advantage: he’s from Middlesex County, but his district also includes parts of Somerset and Mercer Counties.
Reynolds-Jackson, meanwhile, already has one prominent local leader hypothetically in her corner. Rev. Charles Boyer, the pastor Trenton’s Greater Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church and one of the state’s most politically influential Black ministers, said that while he didn’t know what the field will look like, “if Verlina Reynolds-Jackson runs, I’m with Verlina Reynolds-Jackson all the way.”
But in a world without the county line, the ballot design system that gave party-backed candidates a lift in their allied counties, those kinds of sharp geographical divides may be more muted this year. Instead, the primary could be decided more based on money and on ideological differences; Watson Coleman, a leading progressive in Congress, said today that she hopes to “pass the torch” to someone who will support the same “principled progressive policies” that she’s fought for during her six terms in office.
This year’s Democratic gubernatorial primary shows how varied the district’s politics are: Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill got 34% of the vote in the district to Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s 27% and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop’s 17%. In that primary, Middlesex accounted for 39.5% of the total votes cast, with Mercer at 27%, Somerset at 24%, and Union, which is only Plainfield, at 10.5%.
The 12th has 227,870 registered Democrats in total.
When Holt first won the 12th district in 1998, it was a swing district – Holt unseated one-term GOP Rep. Mike Pappas – but it has since been transformed, both by redistricting and by political realignments in New Jersey’s suburbs, into a deep-blue district.
The district remained relatively unchanged following the most recent round of redistricting, in part thanks to Watson Coleman herself. During that redistricting cycle, then-Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-Ringoes) pushed for Plainfield to be shifted to the 7th district – a move that likely would have gotten Malinowski re-elected over Kean – but Watson Coleman strongly objected and Plainfield remained where it was. Malinowski’s preferred map would have moved some Republican towns in Hunterdon into Watson Coleman’s district.
This story was updated at 1:43 p.m. with three additional names: Tennille McCoy, Paula Sollami Covello, and Samuel Frisby. It was updated again at 1:55 p.m. with comment from Gusciora, again at 2:17 p.m. with comment from Boyer and to add Steward’s name, again at 2:59 to add Heck’s name, again at 3:30 p.m. to reflect Robinson’s and Cohen’s entrances into the race, and again at 4:55 p.m. to add Mapp’s name.
