Adam Hamawy has lived a far more eventful life than his current career as a Central Jersey surgeon might suggest.
During the Iraq War, Hamawy served as a trauma combat surgeon, where he operated on hundreds of servicemembers and civilians – among them now-Senator Tammy Duckworth, who credits Hamawy with helping to save her life. Twenty years later, amid the ongoing war in Israel and Palestine, Hamawy volunteered to provide medical aid in Gaza, where he was briefly trapped by an Israeli border closure before being successfully evacuated.
Now, Hamawy is embarking on an entirely new type of chapter in his career: running for Congress. He’s announcing today that he’ll run as a Democrat for the Central Jersey seat left behind by retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), a progressive stalwart whom Hamawy cited as an inspiration for his campaign.
“She is such a fierce advocate for her constituency, and she is not afraid to say the things that need to be said,” Hamawy said of the congresswoman. “It’s going to be a tough thing for anyone to try to fill her shoes. But I feel that we have to continue it, and we have to use her example of saying what’s right.”
The 56-year-old Hamawy, the son of Egyptian immigrants, was raised in Old Bridge and spent eight years as a U.S. Army officer, including a nine-month stint as a combat surgeon in Baghdad during the height of the Iraq War. A father of four, he now lives in South Brunswick and works as a reconstructive plastic surgeon; he’s largely stayed away from electoral politics, never seeking elected office until this year.
When Hamawy went to Gaza to provide medical care in May 2024, however, he became part of a larger national story about U.S. involvement in Israel’s war efforts.
Hamawy joined a team of 19 doctors, ten of them Americans, to provide assistance to Gaza’s beleaguered public health system, and was subsequently trapped there after Israel launched a military operation in Rafah. Upon his evacuation to the U.S., Hamawy spoke widely on the devastation he had witnessed, saying in one interview that “the level of civilian casualties is something that I’ve never seen before.”
One of Hamawy’s chief advocates during the week-long crisis was Duckworth, on whom Hamawy operated after her helicopter was attacked by Iraqi insurgents in 2004. Hamawy said that the senator remains an inspiration for him: “I treated hundreds of people in Iraq when I was there: soldiers, Marines, airmen,” he said. “Many of them went on to do great things. One of them ended up being a senator, and for me, that shows that my work actually made a difference.”
Hamawy’s efforts in Gaza also drew the attention of Watson Coleman, who has been among her party’s most irrepressible pro-Palestinian (and Israel-skeptic) voices since the current incarnation of the long-running conflict broke out in 2023. When President Donald Trump gave his joint address before Congress last year, Watson Coleman brought Hamawy as her guest.
His experiences in Gaza, Hamawy said, will inform the policies he’ll fight for as a congressional candidate and, potentially, as the 12th district’s next congressman.
“We’re able to bomb Venezuela, we’re bombing Nigeria, we’re bombing Gaza – why don’t we have enough money to fix our health care system? Why don’t we have money to fix our education?” Hamawy asked. “That’s why I’m running.”
Hamawy’s remarkable life story, and the relationships he made along the way, instantly make him the most nationally prominent candidate seeking the Democratic nomination to succeed Watson Coleman – but he still faces many obstacles to winning the seat.
Since the six-term congresswoman announced her retirement in November, nearly a dozen Democrats have joined the race to succeed her in the 12th district, which includes a strongly Democratic and incredibly diverse cross-section of Central Jersey that spans from Trenton to Plainfield. Many of those Democrats hold elected office as state legislators, mayors, or county commissioners, giving them political connections across the district that a newcomer like Hamawy might lack.
But Hamawy said that his principled and progressive message, and the life experience he brings to his campaign, will transcend typical political labels and resonate with the voters he hopes to represent.
“Politics was never my plan,” Hamawy says in his launch video. “But I’ve lived these struggles hands-on. I’m running for Congress to fight for health care, for our veterans, for all of us here at home – and to put humanity first. I’ve gotten my hands dirty my whole life. Now I’m ready to do it again.”