Hamawy’s Primary Victory in NJ-12: ‘There is No GOP Equivalent to This, Not Even Close’

Hamawy’s Primary Victory in NJ-12: ‘There is No GOP Equivalent to This, Not Even Close’

An hour and a half after the polls closed on Tuesday night, the Associated Press called the Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District for Dr. Adam Hamawy. He is running for the House seat currently occupied by Democrat Bonnie Watson Coleman, who is retiring.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Adam Hamawy wins Democratic nomination for U.S. House in New Jersey's 12th Congressional District. #APRaceCall at 9:36 p.m. EDT. https://t.co/TS3eIpQI5W

— AP Race Calls (@AP_RaceCalls) June 3, 2026

The troubling implications of Hamawy’s victory cannot be overstated. Yes, he’s extremely progressive. His most enthusiastic supporters include the far-left political streamer Hasan Piker, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

But concerns about his fitness for public office go far beyond his political ideology.

In the early 1990s, Hamawy literally volunteered for an Al-Qaeda-linked group. More alarming still, he was a loyal follower of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the terrorist cleric known as the “Blind Sheikh,” who inspired the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Not only was Hamawy a loyal follower of Abdel-Rahman, he acted as his interpreter. According to Fox News host Will Cain, the pair once took a cross-country road trip to Detroit together.

Hamawy’s support continued even after Abdel-Rahman was named as a suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which left six people dead.

Hamawy appeared as a witness for the defense during Abdel-Rahman’s 1995 trial. Cain reported that during his testimony, he acknowledged that Abdel-Rahman viewed Israel and the United States as “enemies of Islam” and encouraged jihad against them.

According to the trial transcript, several months after the bombing, Hamawy told him, “If you need anything, you can just give me a call.”

Abdel-Rahman was convicted and died in prison in 2017.

[In a recent post about Hamawy’s growing strength in the polls, I provided more detail about his testimony.]

Chuck Ross, an investigative reporter for The Washington Free Beacon, wasn’t exaggerating when he remarked in an X post, “There is no GOP equivalent to this, not even close.”

The state of the Democratic party is such that it is electing a former Al-Qaeda volunteer who testified on behalf of the mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing. There is no GOP equivalent to this, not even close https://t.co/DqH9DerDR4

— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) June 3, 2026

Democrats point to Hamawy’s service as a combat medic in Iraq as though it somehow exonerates him from his ties to a terrorist-linked organization and a convicted terrorist a decade earlier. It doesn’t.

His actions are his actions. While military service is commendable, it doesn’t exempt someone from scrutiny over past associations. If an individual has a documented history of involvement with terrorists or terrorist-affiliated groups, they should not be entrusted with public office in the U.S.

For many Americans, and particularly for Democrats, the lessons of September 11 seem to have faded with time. In New York City — the site of the deadliest terrorist attack in American history — voters actually elected a Muslim mayor who also happens to be a democratic socialist.

pic.twitter.com/9fsZque1ER

— Sunshine Diamond Eyes (@sundiamondshine) June 3, 2026

Call me an Islamophobe, but when groups openly advocate for the restoration of a global caliphate and unambiguously declare their hatred for the West — as most Islamist terrorist groups do — I don’t think it’s unreasonable to take them at their word.

The Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Islamist movement dedicated to implementing Islamic law (sharia) in government and society, has long embraced the aspiration of reestablishing a global Islamic caliphate.

In 2014, after conquering vast stretches of Iraq and Syria, ISIS formally declared the establishment of a caliphate and renamed itself the “Islamic State.” For a brief moment, the group’s ambitions appeared — at least to them — to be within reach. As The New York Times observed at the time, “The jihadist insurgent group ISIS, or as it now prefers to be called, the Islamic State, appears well on the road to achieving its stated goal: the restoration of the caliphate.”

That experiment ultimately ended in military defeat. Yet the idea itself did not disappear.

NPR noted:

Re-creating a caliphate has been a goal of fundamentalist Sunni groups for decades, including al-Qaeda. From their perspective, the caliphates represented a golden age of Islam, when Muslims had vast political and economic power and were at the cutting edge in many arts and sciences. Re-creating the caliphate is the path to restoring that lost glory, in their view.

In fact, al-Qaeda has long been committed to removing Western influence from the Middle East and, in my view, from every corner of the globe where it could realistically do so. Its decision to target the World Trade Center, which they viewed as a symbol of American economic power and capitalism, was a stark reminder that its ambitions extend far beyond the Middle East.

Consider that few Muslims who settle in the U.S. and Europe show much interest in assimilating into their host societies. Instead, most choose to maintain their distinct cultural and religious identities.

Does that somehow escape the Democrats?

Whether Hamawy ultimately wins the general election is almost beside the point. [He likely will.] The more important question is how a man who volunteered for an al-Qaeda-linked organization, maintained a close relationship with the Blind Sheikh, testified on his behalf, and continues to defend him to this day, became a viable candidate in a major-party primary.

The answer is uncomfortable but increasingly difficult to ignore: too many Americans have forgotten the threat posed by Islamist extremism and too many Democrats have convinced themselves that concerns about it are either outdated or politically inconvenient. Hamawy’s victory is not merely the story of one congressional race. It is a reflection of a broader cultural and political amnesia that would have been unthinkable in the years after September 11.

Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn.

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.