Phantom petition objector in NJ-2 has ties to one of the challengers

Democratic congressional candidate Bayly Winder’s campaign appears to have been secretly behind the recruitment of a phantom objector to hide his bid to get one of his primary opponents tossed from the ballot in New Jersey’s 2nd district, the New Jersey Globe has learned.

The New Jersey Globe has found ties between the Winder campaign and Chris Hohmuth, a Princeton resident who filed a challenge to remove Terri Reese, a political newcomer who wants to take on the Republican incumbent, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis).

Winder, a former Biden administration official, denied any involvement in the petition challenge.

“The truth, plain and simple, is I don’t know who they are,” he said.  “I’m not sure what happened.”

A marathon 10-hour hearing before an administrative law judge on Monday led to Reese surviving the petition challenge by just eight signatures.  Hohmuth did not attend the hearing and instead retained a lawyer, Zachary A. Klein.

Hohmuth has no apparent connection to New Jersey politics.  That makes his sudden emergence as an objector puzzling.

Reached by phone at Factiva, a Dow Jones-owned AI-powered research platform used by media companies, Hohmuth was unable to identify the incumbent congressman, Van Drew, whom Reese wants to unseat.

“I’m just trying to be a good citizen,” Hohmuth said.

But petition challenges are hardly ever the work of amateurs.  Filing a challenge requires some level of knowledge of the system or direct involvement.

Hohmuth has been a registered Democrat for 18 years, but records show that he failed to vote in 16 primaries during that time – he voted only in 2016 and 2025 – not a sign of a political insider.

He was still somehow able to secure a copy of Reese’s petition and, over the course of a few days, prepare detailed challenges to over 130 signatories.  He did so without access to a private database of voters managed entirely by national and state party organizations – if he indeed prepared the challenge on his own.

The address he provided on a certification to the Office of Administrative Law the day after the hearing does not match the 38-year-old Hohmuth’s own voter registration.  He is still registered to vote at his father’s home in Princeton.

Hohmuth declined repeated attempts to explain his motivation for targeting Reese, who appears to be the least-known candidate in the race.

“I’m not interested in talking about this,” he said.

But perhaps by coincidence, a Facebook friendship between Hohmuth and Andrew Sklansky, Winder’s campaign manager, appears to have abruptly ended a few hours after the New Jersey Globe called Hohmuth at work on Tuesday.

Sklansky did not respond to a call from the New Jersey Globe.  Klein did not respond to a voicemail at his law office or to an email.   During the court hearing, Klein declined to tell Reese if his client had a horse in the 2nd district Democratic primary.

Winder told the New Jersey Globe that he’s never met Hohmuth, even though they are roughly the same age and both from Princeton.

Asked how he learned about the challenge to Reese’s petition, Winder said he “heard from someone in the campaign world who let me know.”

He declined to identify who that was, other than it was “one of my friends in the campaign scene.” Winder wouldn’t say who it was, but later sent a text message saying his friend had read about the challenge in the New Jersey Globe.