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 roughly nine percentage points an hour and a half after polls closed, 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.
Dr. Hamawy, a first-time candidate, owns a cosmetic surgery practice in Princeton, N.J. 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.
“When I came back, I started going to D.C. and talking to our representatives, not only as a doctor, but as a witness, because so few people have been in there,” he said last month as he campaigned in Trenton. What he found, he said, were “too many doors that were closed that didn’t even want to listen to what I was saying.”
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.
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.
His opponents included a well-known former leader of the state’s left-leaning Working Families alliance, two mayors, a member of the State Assembly and a Princeton University neuroscientist known for his expertise in gerrymandering.
Dr. Hamawy was joined on Saturday at a get-out-the-vote rally in Trenton by Chris Rabb, a democratic socialist from Philadelphia who ran a similar anti-establishment campaign to win a Democratic primary last month in Pennsylvania. Mr. Rabb, who was also endorsed by Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, did a cartwheel as he took the stage.
“When they say, ‘Why are you talking so much about a free Palestine?’” Mr. Rabb asked the crowd before answering the question himself. “Because our fates are intertwined.”
CiCi Hanna, 25, was there in support of Dr. Hamawy. She said she first learned 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.”
“Once I heard that,” she added, “I was pretty much on the train.”
Lauren Hard contributed reporting.
Tracey Tully is a reporter for The Times who covers New Jersey, where she has lived for more than 20 years.
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