CD-12 Candidates Face Black Community Forum in Somerset

The pews of First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset filled early Sunday morning, and the message from the pulpit was blunt before a single candidate spoke.

“ICE is a modern-day Klan institution,” said the Rev. Pastor Dante Quick, setting the tone for a CD-12 Democratic primary forum that tackled some of the sharpest anxieties facing Black and brown communities right now. Quick wanted answers on AI job displacement, a tax structure that punishes the poor, and a housing crisis that’s pushing families to the edge. “The middle class does not exist,” he said. Between college tuition and gas prices, he told the crowd, people are one paycheck from losing their homes.

Not exactly the warm-up you’d expect. But this wasn’t that kind of forum.

The event, sponsored by SandSJ, the NJ Institute for Social Justice, and the New Brunswick Area Branch of the NAACP, drew more than a dozen candidates chasing the open seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman. When SandSJ founder the Rev. Pastor Charles Boyer invoked her name, the crowd rose without being asked. Watson Coleman built real loyalty in this district over her years in Congress, and whoever wins this primary will have to earn that same trust from scratch.

Thirteen candidates sat in alphabetical order at the front of the church: Matt Adams, Sue Altman, Brad Cohen, Elijah Dixon, Adam Hamawy, Andres Jimenez of the Green Party, Kyle Little, Adrian Mapp, Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, Shanel Robinson, Squire Servance, Jay Vaingankar, and Sam Wang. The Rev. Dr. Bernadette Glover moderated.

All of them pledged to reject corporate campaign money. Whether that promise holds through a competitive primary is another question.

On housing and wages, Assemblywoman Reynolds-Jackson drew on her background. “My career as a social worker, I started in housing, making sure people in vulnerable situations had a place to go,” she said. She committed to supporting housing trust programs and funding churches doing community work. “We have to make sure we have a living wage, not just a minimum wage,” she said. Reynolds-Jackson has name recognition and a legislative record, two things many of her opponents are still building.

Business owner Squire Servance kept his message short and punchy. “Democracy is not for sale,” he said. Then he said it again.

Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp went straight at the tax code. “I would change the tax code so corporations would pay more,” he said. Simple, direct, the kind of line that works in a church basement or a union hall.

On wealth inequality, East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen pointed to baby bonds as a concrete fix for the racial wealth gap. “Billionaires have done incredibly well, and that hurts people in communities of color,” Cohen said. “The first thing is to recognize that incredible wealth gap.” His support for baby bonds, championed by U.S. Senator Cory Booker over the years, signals where he sees the policy conversation heading.

The forum underscored just how much the CD-12 race is shaping up as a fight over who can most credibly represent communities that have been squeezed by stagnant wages, rising costs, and federal enforcement policies that Quick compared, without hesitation, to white supremacist violence. That framing got no pushback in the room.

For Central Jersey residents watching this race, the stakes are concrete. The 12th District runs through New Brunswick, Trenton, Princeton, and Hamilton, communities where the federal policy debates over immigration enforcement, corporate taxation, and housing investment aren’t abstract. They show up in eviction notices and empty storefronts.

InsiderNJ first reported on the forum.

The primary is still months out, but Sunday’s forum made clear that whoever wins this seat will need more than a good stump speech. Quick and the community he represents are asking hard questions, and they’re keeping score.