This is what ended up working for me:
The initial click triggers an event to show additional fields(optional, only needed in my specific case).
$("#<id-of-your-select>_chzn").trigger("click")
This statement opens the Chosen dropdown:
$("#<id-of-your-select>_chzn").trigger("mousedown")
Execute this statement on the li element id of the chosen dropdown element you want to choose.
$("#pt_chzn_o_1").trigger("mouseup")