Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), is the latest Democratic presidential hopeful to nix his campaign, he shared in a video message on Monday morning (Jan. 13). The 50-year-old politician announced in February 2019 his run to become the Democrat Party’s nomination for the 2020 presidential election.
Part of the issue stemmed from the lack of monetary support for his campaign. “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,” he said via ABC News. “So I’ve chosen to suspend my campaign now, take care of my wonderful staff, and give you time to consider the other strong choices in the field.” Booker’s campaign struggled to cement a firm stance at the polls.
Booker, a former mayor of Newark, continued to state what this experience has taught him and thanked his supporters and campaign team for their backing. “I’ve said throughout this race that this election is not just a referendum on Donald Trump. It’s a referendum on who we are and who we must be to each other,” he said. “And over the past year, I’ve seen the very best of who we can be.” A few of the pillars Booker based his campaign on ranged from housing discrimination, the end of gun violence, and tackling criminal justice reform.
Booker joins a list of Democrats that have pulled out of the race: Julian Castro, Sen. Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, and Gov. Steve Bullock to highlight a few. Watch his full message below.