News and Commentary

Cory Booker’s Campaign Is On Life Support

   DailyWire.com
Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey and 2020 presidential candidate, speaks during the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Summer Meeting in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Friday, Aug. 23, 2019.
Michael Short/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The next 10 days will be crucial for determining whether Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) will continue his bid for the Democratic nomination.

NBC News reported that Booker’s campaign manager, Addisu Demissie, sent a memo to staff warning that if the candidate couldn’t raise nearly $2 million in the next 10 days, then the campaign had no “legitimate long-term path forward.”

Due to reduced fundraising in the beginning of September, Demissie warned, the candidate needed to raise $1.7 million by September 30, the final day of the third financial quarter.

“Without a fundraising surge to close out this quarter, we do not see a legitimate long-term path forward,” said the memo, sent Saturday morning. “The next 10 days will determine whether Cory Booker can stay in this race.”

Booker has struggled to separate himself from the other progressive candidates in the race, such as Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT). He currently sits at 2.8% in the RealClear Politics polling average, behind former Vice President Joe Biden, Warren, Sanders, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Harris, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

Demissie continued that the campaign would not be able to expand before primary voting begins next year. He also said Booker doesn’t want to stay in the race if there isn’t a path to the nomination.

“If our campaign is not in a financial position to grow, he’s not going to continue to consume resources and attention that can be used to focus on beating Donald Trump, which needs to be everyone’s first priority,” Demissie wrote, according to NBC.

Demissie also warned in his memo that only four Democratic campaigns had the “money necessary to build and sustain the national organization needed to win,” and that the massive 2020 primary “is about to narrow dramatically.”

“Booker might not be in this race for much longer — the same is true for other important voices in the field,” Demissie wrote in the memo.

Demissie did not specify which campaigns were in good shape, but NBC speculated that they were the campaigns of Biden, Warren, Sanders, and Buttigieg – because he “raised more money last quarter than any other candidate.”

Demissie also said he was not simply writing the memo to scare supporters into raising more money for the candidate.

“I want to be clear: This isn’t an end-of-quarter stunt or another one of those memos from a campaign trying to spin the press,” Demissie wrote. “This is a real, unvarnished look under the hood of our operation at a level of transparency unprecedented in modern presidential campaigns.”

NBC reported that Booker would be in Iowa Saturday to attend the Polk County Steak Fry (even though many candidates claim Americans need to stop eating beef to save the world from climate change).

“Starting there, Booker and his campaign will try to remind Democrats why they made the former Newark mayor a national star in the first place and what they might miss if he were to exit the race, such as his powerful, optimistic oratory and roots in a poor inner-city neighborhood, according to aides,” the outlet reported.

Got a tip worth investigating?

Your information could be the missing piece to an important story. Submit your tip today and make a difference.

Submit Tip
The Daily Wire   >  Read   >  Cory Booker’s Campaign Is On Life Support