Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), New Jersey’s most stalwartly progressive congresswoman, has won re-election to the 12th congressional district, the New Jersey Globe projects.
As of 8:42 p.m., Watson Coleman leads Republican businessman Darius Mayfield by a 78% to 21% margin (though several counties have yet to report any results) in a majority-minority Central Jersey district that’s considered safely Democratic.
Watson Coleman, the daughter of barrier-breaking politician John Watson and a former assemblywoman and state Democratic Party chair, was elected to the House in 2014 to succeed retiring Rep. Rush Holt Jr. (D-Hopewell). Upon being sworn in, she became the first woman of color to ever represent New Jersey in Congress.
In the decade since then, Watson Coleman has forged an iconoclastic and progressive path in Washington. In this year’s Senate race, she was virtually alone among top New Jersey Democrats in declining to endorse First Lady Tammy Murphy, saying that she liked all four Democratic candidates who were running; she’s also taken a sharply critical stance of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, becoming the lone New Jersey member of Congress to vote against foreign aid for Israel.
Those stances might not fit every congressional district, but the voters of the deep-blue 12th district, which includes cities like Trenton, Plainfield, and Princeton, have had little desire to change their representation. Watson Coleman defeated former Princeton school board member Daniel Dart in a landslide in the Democratic primary, and Mayfield’s general election campaign against her never gained traction.
When Watson Coleman was first elected, she was the only woman in the state’s 14-member congressional delegation; the state had elected an all-male congressional delegation for 12 years after the 2002 retirement of Rep. Marge Roukema (R-Ridgewood). Now, depending on how various results go tonight, Watson Coleman could be joined by as many as four other New Jersey congresswomen come 2025.
Belgium
