The New Jersey political world may still be adjusting to Mikie Sherrill’s brand-new governorship and anxiously awaiting the results of next week’s unpredictable 11th district special election primary, but the next stage of the 2026 elections – county convention season – is just around the corner.
Next Saturday, February 7, Monmouth County Democrats will meet for their annual convention, the first of the cycle. With that, a two-month sprint of county conventions will begin, during which the Democrats and Republicans running in the state’s most competitive congressional primaries will be seeking as many party endorsements as they can get ahead of the March 23 state filing deadline.
How much the results of the conventions will ultimately matter is far from certain. In the era when primary ballot designs were dictated by the county line, party endorsements could make or break campaigns, and candidates who didn’t get the endorsements they were hoping for frequently ended their bids entirely. But thanks to the county line’s downfall – and the mentality shift that accompanied its demise – there’s no guarantee that candidates snubbed by party organizations will bow out, especially if they’ve raised lots of money or built up serious organizations independent of the party machine.
All that’s technically at stake when the parties award their endorsement is a ballot slogan and a commitment to lend their aid – a commitment that goes a lot farther in some counties than in others. Some counties may also decide not to make any endorsement at all, or endorse multiple candidates at once; in 2025, no fewer than five gubernatorial candidates ran as the official endorsee of the Somerset County Democrats.
This year, the state’s two most closely watched primaries will come in the 7th district, where seven Democrats are competing for the right to take on Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield), and the 12th district, where at least 16 Democrats want to succeed retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing). Also worth keeping tabs on are the Democratic primary for the 2nd district and GOP primaries for the 9th district and for U.S. Senate.
7th district Democrats
The seven Democrats interested in becoming the next member of Congress from the permanently swingy 7th district have spent the last year focusing on raising money, earning endorsements, and making connections across the district, a critical task since none of them have held elected office before. February 22 will be the first test of their success.
That Sunday, Democrats in Hunterdon County will meet to award the first party endorsement of the 7th district campaign. Hunterdon Democrats have an open and broadly egalitarian convention process, and none of the seven candidates are from the county, meaning that no one will have an obvious home field advantage.
Most of the other county parties in the 7th district will hold their own conventions in mid-March: Sussex Democrats on March 14, Somerset Democrats on March 18, Warren Democrats on March 21, and Morris Democrats on March 22, just one day before the filing deadline. Union County Democrats have not yet set a date to award their endorsement; they also conduct endorsements via a vote of the district’s municipal chairs, rather than through a full county convention.
Conventional wisdom suggests that three Democrats have pulled away from the pack in the 7th district: former Navy helicopter pilot Rebecca Bennett, physician Tina Shah, and businessman Brian Varela. If one of them can win most or all of the district’s conventions, that may make them the race’s frontrunner, though each of them has plenty of money to compete regardless. (In 2018, once Tom Malinowski won a critical mass of county party endorsements, all of his top opponents subsequently dropped out, but that was still in the era of the county line.)
If the convention results are split, though, the primary will probably remain competitive right up until the end. Convention season could also be a ticket for one of the race’s other Democratic contenders, like climate scientist Megan O’Rourke or former Small Business Administration official Michael Roth, to break through; O’Rourke is from Warren County, making her the only Democrat to hail from the district’s far northwestern corner, and Roth is from Union County.
12th district Democrats
The ludicrously crowded race for the safely blue 12th district – 16 Democrats are currently running, with a few more still to come – has the potential to break down on much sharper regional lines than the neighboring 7th district.
Mercer County Democrats will meet for their convention on February 26, followed by Middlesex Democrats on March 11 (though Middlesex has more of a top-down endorsement process than the word “convention” would suggest) and Somerset Democrats on March 18. Union County Democrats, again, have not yet chosen a date for their endorsement, but only the city of Plainfield is in the 12th district; lo and behold, Plainfield’s municipal Democratic chair is Mayor Adrian Mapp, one of the 12th district’s many candidates.
For the smattering of state and local politicians in the race (among them Mercer’s Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, Somerset’s Commissioner Shanel Robinson, and Middlesex’s East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen), getting party support in their home county is critical. And if anyone outside the local political world can snag an endorsement or two, that could help establish them as a contender worth taking seriously.
In 2014, the last time the seat was open, the Democratic primary proceeded on strictly regional lines. Watson Coleman was the Mercer (and Union) candidate, State Sen. Linda Greenstein (D-Plainsboro) was the Middlesex candidate, and then-Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula (D-Franklin) was the Somerset candidate, and their voter bases strongly reflected that.
With the line gone and with so many more candidates in the race this time around, though, it’s likely that the election will be much more chaotic than simple party endorsements can account for. If one candidate has their local county party’s support and another has $2 million, for example, it would be pretty risky to bet on the former.
Other races
The state’s most important GOP primary is in the 9th district, where two Republicans, Clifton Councilwoman Rosie Pino and attorney Tiffany Burress, are running to unseat Rep. Nellie Pou (D-North Haledon).
Burress already has endorsements from all three county Republican chairmen in the district, so the official party endorsement process may be more of a formality than anything. The Bergen GOP convention will be on March 9, while Passaic Republicans are set to hold a candidate screening on February 7, with an endorsement likely coming a few days later; in Hudson County, which makes up a small percentage of the district, the GOP chairman has the power to award the endorsement himself.
(Bergen and Passaic Republicans will also be responsible for finding a suitable nominee against Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer, whose district is competitive on paper but whose two declared opponents thus far are both little-known and poorly funded.)
Down in South Jersey, four Democrats – Bayly Winder, Tim Alexander, Terri Reese, and Bill Finn – are competing for the nomination to take on Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) in the conservative-leaning 2nd district.
The most important convention there will also be the first: Atlantic County Democrats, who make up the largest share of the six-county district, will award their endorsement on March 8. Cape May Democrats will hold their county committee meeting on March 9, the Salem Democratic convention will be on March 14, and the Ocean Democratic convention will be on March 15; Cumberland Democrats haven’t scheduled theirs yet, and Gloucester Democrats don’t really hold conventions at all.
(Some of those county parties have a track record of staying out of the 2nd district race; Cape May, Cumberland, and Gloucester Democrats all declined to make an endorsement in the three-way 2024 Democratic primary for the seat.)
Then there’s the race for U.S. Senate, which is increasingly looking like it might be a total bust for Republicans. Only one Republican, former Tabernacle Committeeman (and 2024 U.S. Senate candidate) Justin Murphy, is officially in the race, and there’s precious little time left for anyone else to get in.
Not every GOP organization has scheduled its convention yet, and some don’t have proper conventions at all, but among the conventions currently on the calendar are the Union GOP on February 12 (less than two weeks away), the Cape May GOP on February 17, the Atlantic GOP on February 21, the Burlington GOP on February 28, the Bergen GOP on March 9, the Somerset GOP on March 10, the Monmouth GOP on March 11, and the Middlesex GOP on March 14.
On the Democratic side, Senator Cory Booker is near-certain to get every county party’s endorsement over his lone primary challenger, Chris Fields. Since Booker is leading the top of the ticket this year, that means any other Democrat who wins a county endorsement will get to share a ballot slogan and campaign literature with the well-known senator.
This story was updated at 6:11 p.m. with the dates of the Burlington and Middlesex GOP conventions.