Mayor Cohen Wins Middlesex County Dem Backing in NJ CD-12

East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen locked up the support of the Middlesex County Democratic Committee Tuesday night, pulling in 67% of the vote at a county convention and establishing himself as a frontrunner in the crowded Democratic primary for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District.

The convention drew 380 participants and was run by Committee Chairman Kevin McCabe. Middlesex County claims more towns in the 12th District than any other county, making Tuesday’s result a significant organizational win for Cohen heading into the primary to replace retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman.

Sue Altman finished second with 11% of the vote. Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson of Trenton came in third. Reynolds-Jackson, whose district includes much of the state capital, carries the backing of the Mercer County Democratic Committee in her home turf.

The Middlesex result signals the emerging shape of this race. State Senator Linda Greenstein, a D-14 Democrat, had already endorsed Cohen before Tuesday’s convention, and that support helped generate momentum going in. With the county organization now formally behind him, Cohen has real structural advantages as the primary heads toward a likely summer vote.

Cohen, a gynecologist at St. Peter’s Hospital in New Brunswick, first ran for mayor of East Brunswick in 2016. He has built his local record around controlled development along the Route 18 corridor, standing up a bipartisan redevelopment agency to give residents a direct stake in how the township grows. The approach balanced large-scale retail, restaurant, and business projects alongside affordable housing, while he says he never raised municipal taxes more than one percent in any single year he held office.

As a congressional candidate, Cohen is leaning hard into his medical background at a moment when healthcare is at the center of national politics. Congressional Republicans have been pushing cuts to Medicaid as part of what President Trump has called his “big, beautiful bill,” a package that would reshape federal spending and gut key provisions of the Affordable Care Act. For a physician, Cohen said, the stakes are not abstract.

“We have a health access and health insurance problem in this country right now,” Cohen said. He argued that rolling back the ACA will deepen the crisis and ultimately push the country toward demands for universal coverage.

“This is not who we are,” Cohen said. “It is grossly unfair in a country like ours that there are people falling behind” because they cannot access healthcare.

The 12th District gives Cohen a specific geographic argument to make beyond healthcare politics. He describes a corridor running from Princeton and Trenton up Route 287 into parts of Hillsborough and Bridgewater as a hub for life sciences research and business, a region sometimes called Einstein Alley. That corridor generates economic activity across the district and employs a significant portion of its residents.

Cohen argues that federal policies targeting science funding, research grants, and education spending hit this district harder than most. “The President is attacking healthcare, attacking science and research and education,” Cohen said. “This is our meat and potatoes.”

That framing connects national Republican priorities directly to local economic concerns, and it gives Cohen a message that should resonate with the district’s dense concentration of researchers, medical professionals, educators, and life sciences workers.

Reynolds-Jackson, meanwhile, brings her own regional base and legislative record. Trenton sits within the 12th District, and Mercer County’s endorsement gives her a foothold in the southwestern end of the district. The assemblywoman has a well-known name in statehouse circles after years in the Legislature.

The primary will test whether organizational support in the district’s most populous county translates into votes. Middlesex carries weight, but the district spans multiple counties and communities with different priorities, and a 67% result at a party convention does not automatically mean a primary majority.

What Tuesday did establish is that Cohen enters the next phase of this race with momentum, money, and the county machine behind him. For a first-time congressional candidate, that is exactly the kind of night you need.