PCDO Federal Endorsement Meeting Results

Eligibility

Members must have signed up by February 1, 2026 in order to vote. Members who were registered Democrats and resided in Congressional District 12 were eligible to vote. 154 Members checked-in on Sunday, February 15, and the split was 111 Princeton Members and 43 Affiliate Members. Everyone received the same ballot.

The Candidates

Candidate statements are posted below as they were received prior to the endorsement meeting. (To get a better view, try zooming out your browser). We will keep all candidate statements active and accessible below for reference up until the Primary on June 2, 2026.

Regardless of the outcome of the Feb 15 Federal Endorsement Meeting, the PCDO is committed to supporting all candidates competing in the Democratic Primary. The PCDO will continue to share candidate events in the area via email to the membership for any Primary candidate. In addition, no funds of the organization may be expended on behalf of any endorsed candidate except in a special or general election for public office, according to Article IX, Sec. 3 of our bylaws. Therefore, the PCDO cannot cosponsor any candidate fundraisers or events for the duration of the Primary, even the endorsed candidate.

Candidate Profiles

The Meeting

The Endorsement Meeting took place at the Suzanne Patterson Center at 45 Stockton Street, Princeton, NJ 08540 on Sunday, February 15, starting at 7:00 PM. Long-time NJ political journalist Charlie Stile moderated the event.

The recording of the event is available below.

Recording

The Results

All voting members attending the meeting cast a single ballot. Voters were asked to rank the candidates from 1 to 17, or select No Endorsement, with the understanding that these rankings would be used if a runoff was triggered.

A candidate received the endorsement of the PCDO only if they obtained votes equal to or greater than 60% of the total ballots cast for that office. The PCDO bylaws provided for a potential runoff because the number of candidates exceeded the number of open seats by two or more. An instant runoff occurred only if no candidate in the initial round met the required endorsement threshold of 60%.

Voters were instructed to rank the candidates beginning with their first choice and were permitted to rank as many or as few candidates as they wished. After all ballots were submitted, an initial round of counting was conducted. Each voter’s first-choice candidate received one vote, and these votes constituted the results of the initial round.

Initial Round

154 ballots were cast, and 1 was a spoiled ballot.

The initial round first choice vote tallies are listed below in alphabetical order. Bold Indicates top two candidates that advanced to runoff:

Matt Adams: 1 (<1%)
Sue Altman: 55 (35.9%)
Mike Anderson: 1 (<1%)
Brad Cohen: 2 (1.3%)
Elijah Dixon: 4 (2.6%)
Adam Hamawy: 29 (19.0%)
Raymond Heck: 0
Kyle Little: 0
Adrian Mapp: 1 (<1%)
Rick Morales: 0
Verlina Reynolds-Jackson: 17 (11.1%)
Shanel Robinson: 1 (<1%)
Squire Servance: 5 (3.3%)
Sujit Singh: 0
Iziah Thompson: 6 (3.9%)
Jay Vaingankar: 13 (8.5%)
Sam Wang: 18 (11.8%)

No candidate met the endorsement threshold in the initial round, and an instant runoff occurred. The runoff included the top two vote-getters (the number of open positions plus one). All candidates who did not advance to the runoff were considered eliminated.

If a voter’s initial-round choice was a candidate who was eliminated, that vote was automatically transferred to the voter’s next highest-ranked candidate who qualified for the runoff. If all candidates a voter ranked were eliminated, the ballot was considered exhausted and counted as a vote of no endorsement.

After all applicable transfers were completed, the ballots were counted again.

Instant Runoff

The instant runoff tallies are listed below in alphabetical order. Bold indicates candidate receiving the PCDO endorsement.