Cory Booker suspends 2020 presidential campaign
'Our campaign has reached the point where we need more money to scale up and continue building a campaign that can win'
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker has suspended his presidential campaign after his message of unity and political healing failed to catch on with voters.
Mr. Booker, the former mayor of Newark, had long lagged behind the leading Democratic candidates in national polls, and he failed to qualify for two consecutive Democratic primary debates, including Tuesday’s debate in Iowa.
“It’s with a full heart that I share this news—I’ve made the decision to suspend my campaign for president,” Mr. Booker said in an email to supporters on Monday. “Our campaign has reached the point where we need more money to scale up and continue building a campaign that can win—money we don’t have, and money that is harder to raise because I won’t be on the next debate stage and because the urgent business of impeachment will rightly be keeping me in Washington.”
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Mr. Booker, 50, first rose to political prominence in 2002, when his unsuccessful bid for mayor of Newark was chronicled in the Academy Award-nominated documentary film “Street Fight.” He was elected mayor in 2006 and built a reputation as a hands-on politician, which included running into a burning building to save a neighbor and rescuing a dog from the cold.
In 2013, following a special election to succeed the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg, Mr. Booker became the first African-American elected to the Senate since Barack Obama nearly a decade prior. He was handily re-elected to a full six-year term in the 2014 election. In announcing the end of his presidential bid, Mr. Booker’s campaign said he would seek re-election in New Jersey.
Mr. Booker, who was running to be the nation’s second black president, launched his campaign in last February, on the first day of Black History Month, with an emphasis on civil rights. The senator was one of three black candidates in the historically diverse Democratic field. California Sen. Kamala Harris ended her campaign in December, while former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick kicked off a last-minute bid for the Democratic nomination in November.
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Mr. Booker has decried the lack of diversity among the remaining candidates in the field, given the party’s large contingent of black and Latino voters. Tuesday’s debate in Iowa will feature six white candidates. Mr. Patrick has struggled to break through with voters after launching his bid late, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who is Asian-American, didn’t qualify for the January debate.
Mr. Booker, like Mr. Obama, became well-known on the national stage for his soaring oratory and optimistic tone. But he struggled to gain traction in the Democratic primary, where his pitch—less rooted in ideology than in a desire to unite a divided nation—failed to animate voters.
Mr. Booker’s corporate connections—spanning from Wall Street to Silicon Valley, coupled with a more moderate record—also invited skepticism from the party’s progressive wing. Although Mr. Booker played an influential role in crafting criminal-justice legislation on Capitol Hill, his legislative resume was otherwise lacking in signature accomplishments.
During Democratic presidential debates, Mr. Booker stood out for delivering punchy and offbeat one-liners that were often directed at former Vice President Joe Biden as they sparred over issues like criminal justice and racial profiling.
In July, Mr. Booker rebuked Mr. Biden’s support for tough-on-crime laws in the 1990s by declaring, “Mr. Vice President, there’s a saying in my community: You’re dipping into the Kool-Aid, and you don’t even know the flavor.” At another debate in November, Mr. Booker rejected Mr. Biden’s logic for opposing marijuana legalization, telling the former vice president: “I thought you might have been high when you said it.”
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But while such confrontations created viral moments on social media, they fell short in advancing Mr. Booker’s campaign.
Mr. Booker was open about his campaign struggles, making several urgent appeals for donations and warning that he would be forced to bow out of the race if supporters didn’t give money.
Mr. Booker’s departure leaves 12 remaining Democrats vying to challenge President Trump in November.