FLEMINGTON - It was so packed, it was hard to get in here without jostling someone's elbow, just as it was difficult to utter the name "Donald Trump" in this room without provoking a sense of pure nausea.

And outrage.

If there was a kiln handy in this old, converted pottery factory, Trump's presidency would have been represented as a clay gargoyle - or a grotesque toad - and flattened in the parking lot before it could get shipped to desecrate the exterior of a cathedral.

Democrats turned out in big numbers this afternoon to support their party and hear from those primary candidates intent on unseating incumbent U.S. Rep. Tom Kean, Jr., whose high name ID as a Trump crony have left people infuriated.

"I am a patriot," said retired Navy helicopter pilot Rebecca Bennett. "I love this country. ...There was no way I was going to sit on the sidelines with the people in power in Washington who are trying to destroy our democracy while enriching themselves."

If you glanced outside while the contenders took the stage, you would have gotten a glimpse of winter-bundled people gingerly but determinedly making their way - like characters in a storybook illustration of Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates - to get into this Hunterdon County Democratic Committee event.

"Today is our meet and greet with the candidates," Hunterdon County Democratic Committee Chairman Michael Drulis told InsiderNJ as people poured into Stangl's. "All through January, the candidates have been meeting one on one with our committee - 40-plus members per meeting - and today is the first day they're all going to be together on the same dais."

"Now is an opportunity for the candidates to talk at the same time and for people to really hear and see what they want to focus on," said Clinton Town Mayor Janice Kovach. "As a mayor, I'm focused on infrastructure and affordability."

Those candidates competing this afternoon at the forum moderated by John Webber were attorney and professor Beth Adubato, Bennett, former federal civil servant Megan O'Rourke, former Biden Administration small business expert Michael Roth, ICU doctor - and Obama Administration veteran - Tina Shah, and entrepreneur Brian Varela.

A notoriously evasive and press-elusive congressman, Kean received a few shoutouts.

"Tom Kean is a coward," Bennett said of the town hall-averse Republican who has radiated sweaty complicit silence through the Trump era.

Bennett reminded committee members here that "Democrats who are veterans outperform other Democrats by about six points. We just saw this yesterday in Texas." Bennett had a good week, as Somerset County Commissioner Sara Sooy suspended her campaign and announced her support for the Navy veteran, who has raised over $2 million for her campaign.

Mostly, the candidates spoke in-depth to key issues, including jobs and the impact of artificial intelligence, democracy and civil liberties infringements by the Trump Administration, immigration, infrastructure, reproductive rights, and healthcare.

"Today we have authoritarian [Trump Administration]... and an economy that is rigged by corruption, and leaders who are bought and paid for," said Roth, "more interested in a phot op and backed by an establishment that doesn't fight for anything."

"I literally can't take it anymore," said Shah, who highlighted her healthcare expertise, citing healthcare costs as the top economic issue of concern to voters.

Varela, the son of Colombian immigrants, said, "We are missing a diversity of perspective that enabled Donald Trump to win the White House."

The progressive organizer noted that he knocked on over 3k doors in support of 2024 congressional candidate Sue Altman. He and his Ecuadorian immigrant wife - a legal resident of the United States - spend time developing survival strategies against the backdrop of the Trump Administration's murderous persecution of everyday Americans in the illegal tactical maintenance of its deportation policy.

O'Rourke, for her part, underscored her scientific background.

"I have devoted my career to agriculture and science - key factors of importance to the economy," she said. "I worked on the [proposed] $1.5 trillion farm bill that will bring home money for farmers and will bring home SNAP benefits and... rural development."

Adubato, a criminal justice professor who teaches 400 students a year, said if she wins the Democratic Primary she will devote herself fulltime to her CD-7 candidacy.

On Feb. 22nd, Hunterdon County Democratic Committee members will vote on whom to award the party slogan in advance of the June Primary.  "I think people are excited and engaged," Kovach told InsiderNJ.

Attendees and event organizers cramming the room included Hunterdon County Democratic Committee Vice Chair Michele Liebtag, Executive Committeewoman Meghan Warner, Assemblywoman Mitchele Drulis (D-16), High Bridge Mayor Michele Lee, Democratic Party diehard Joey Novick, Lambertville Councilwoman Karen Kominsky, Sierra Club legend Jeff Tittel, and many others.