The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit a piece to the Opinion section, click here.
My name is Sam Wang. I am a professor of neuroscience, and I direct the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. I am running to represent New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, which includes the Municipality of Princeton, to help stop the damage to our nation’s laws and principles — and begin to build a better democracy for all. You can help me in this fight by supporting or working for my campaign.
I want everyone in the district to have the same fair chance that made my own journey possible. Achieving that aspiration requires a strong structure of rights — and restoring the rule of law.
My parents fled communism in 1949 and came to the United States in the 1960s. They raised my brother, sister, and me in Indiana on modest means, where they worked as librarians and insisted that education came first. Our family faced additional challenges: My sister is autistic, and for years her condition went undiagnosed. My parents’ unwavering support enabled me to attend Caltech, where I studied physics and launched my scientific career, at the age of 15.
Those experiences shaped my life’s work. Today, my research lab studies the biology of autism. My lab members and I developed a way to use AI and smartphones to diagnose and measure autism remotely. Our work led to the founding of a company whose work can help families diagnose autism earlier.
I love the diversity of the 12th Congressional District because it reflects the promise that brought my parents to America. Over the last decade, the district has become a vibrant, majority Asian, Black, and Hispanic community. N.J.-12 deserves representation that will prioritize its interests.
First and foremost, Congress must do away with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. ICE, which was only created in 2003, is infringing on the rights and lives of people across the country. After abolishing ICE, we must create an immigration framework that focuses on real border concerns and does not operate above the law as a masked paramilitary. Our neighbors deserve to live in peace. Next, we must pair that enforcement with a clear path to citizenship for those who work hard and seek only a chance to belong.
Congress must also ensure that top-tier research can continue to happen at our institutions of higher education. As a career researcher and professor, I’ve benefited from the strength of American higher education. During my 26 years at Princeton, federal support has powered my fundamental discoveries in neuroscience. Hundreds of my students and lab members have gone on to meaningful careers in science, medicine, business, and law. But now their futures, and yours, are at risk.
The federal government is actively undermining higher education and devaluing students’ degrees through attacks on research funding. They are also interfering with academic freedom and attacking international scholars who enrich American science. I know how to fight back. After my Ph.D., I spent a year working for the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, where I helped Senator Edward M. Kennedy defend science and higher education. Being backstage with Senator Kennedy and with Senator Bill Bradley ’65 taught me to translate science into practical action. In returning to Congress as a representative for N.J.-12, I will bring my experience to protect scholars and restore U.S. science to its rightful position as a global leader.
Usually, scientists stick with a specialized field. However, I am deeply unhappy with how unequally power is divided in our society. So I have used my statistical abilities to level one part of democracy’s playing field: by repairing unfair elections.
Here in New Jersey, party insiders used visual trickery on the ballot page to manipulate voters into supporting their favored candidate. I provided key expert testimony to stop that trick, known as the “county line,” which gave party-chosen candidates an advantage of over 30 percentage points in vote share. Now that the county line is gone, newcomers like me have a better shot at winning office.
I have also fought gerrymandering, the practice by which politicians handpick their voters by drawing district boundaries to game election outcomes. At the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, my team and I established a grading system to expose gerrymanders all over the nation. As the nonpartisan expert in New Jersey’s redistricting process, I witnessed firsthand how political appointees operate behind closed doors to take decisions out of the voters’ hands. In Congress, I will sponsor legislation to stop gerrymandering through an approach that works: independent citizen commissions that remove map-making power from politicians and require lines to be drawn openly and fairly. And I will support a renewal of the Voting Rights Act to combat a Department of Justice that threatens minority rights through voter suppression and racial gerrymandering.
Fighting gerrymandering and building a fair immigration system are just the start. Those issues are just two examples of attacks on our constitutional system, which have revealed an executive branch run amok. To stop these abuses from ever happening again, we have to look past this year’s election and build future strength. That requires deeper reforms.
Donald Trump has speculated about trying to take over midterm elections, especially in key states. We need a system that removes the payoff for interference by maximizing the power of all voters. We need to eliminate the Electoral College and restore Congress’s full constitutional authority. And we need to reform the Supreme Court to resist capture by an extreme faction. These changes can revive the dying values of our republic.
Congress today is deeply polarized, ignores the priorities of voters, and fails to check the other two branches of government. But neither party, Democrats nor Republicans, is meeting our moment of need. Until last year, I was unaffiliated with either party. That independence makes me an outsider, and is exactly why I am running. By seeking the Democratic nomination, I will bring that party closer into alignment with its stated ideals: opportunity for all, equal justice under law, and personal rights. Fundamental reform requires not career politicians, but citizen legislators who are willing to resist oligarchy and use the levers of power to make long-term change.
In these troubled times, everyone needs to step up. Here in New Jersey, the critical contest is the primary election on June 2. I hope you’ll support me. But even more, I call on you to aid a nation in need and give back to your country.
Sam Wang is a professor of neuroscience and director of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project. He is seeking the Democratic nomination for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District. His campaign website is https://SamForNJ.org.
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