New Jersey Senator Cory Booker has gained national attention throughout his career in public office, but has struggled to jump out in early 2020 polling amid a crowded field of presidential hopefuls.
As Booker prepared to speak at the annual Polk County Democrats' Steak Fry in Iowa on Saturday (despite his vegan diet), his campaign released a memo to reporters and supporters which said the candidate would decide in the next 10 days whether he still has a shot at winning the nomination.
The memo read, in part, "This isn't an end-of-quarter stunt or another one of those memos from a campaign trying to spin the press. This is a real, unvarnished look under the hood of our operation at a level of transparency unprecedented in modern presidential campaigns."
Then just days after the memo was released, the campaign announced it had raised $1 million, putting it over 50 percent of the way to its goal of raising $1.7 million by September 30.
Sabrina Singh, national press secretary for Cory Booker 2020, told Cheddar on Tuesday she is "cautiously optimistic" the campaign will meet its goal by the date. If not, Booker could be the latest presidential hopeful to drop out of the race.
But Singh added that she thinks "we're going to get there."
"We know that in order for us to have a path to victory come January and February, [we need] to make sure that we can expand our operation," Singh said. "And the only way we can do that is by hiring more organizers, putting them on the ground, so people are getting texts and calls and getting their doors knocked."
Other 2020 Democrats have also begun focusing their efforts on early states like Iowa and New Hampshire.
A reporter says he overheard Sen. Kamala Harris joking to a colleague in Washington that she is "moving to f----- Iowa," as her campaign ramps up to weekly visits in early caucus and primary states and doubles the size of her 65-person ground operation, POLITICO reports.
Booker's national press secretary said the purpose of the memo was to "be as transparent as possible with the people, with the voters."
On Tuesday, Monmouth University Polling Institute released its newest poll out of New Hampshire that has Booker polling at 2 percent among registered and likely Democratic voters. Harris is polling just a point higher at 3 percent.
"We are not just in it to stick this out, we're in it to win it. So, that's why we need the $1.7 million," Singh said, explaining that donations would help boost staffing efforts in early states to mobilize those polling numbers.
And while Democrats on the campaign trail are trying to unseat President Trump in the upcoming election, House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have opened an impeachment inquiry against Trump.
Booker's team also recognizes that work continues for the senator on Capitol Hill, especially as the formal investigation into Trump's conduct gets underway.
"The President should be held accountable now. Cory, from day one, from back in May, has been calling for the impeachment proceedings to begin," Singh told Cheddar.
President Donald Trump says a deal struck by Netflix last week to buy Warner Bros. Discovery “could be a problem” because of the size of the combined market share. The Republican president says he will be involved in the decision about whether federal regulators should approve the deal. Trump commented Sunday when he was asked about the deal as he walked the red carpet at the Kennedy Center Honors. The $72 billion deal would bring together two of the biggest players in television and film and potentially reshape the entertainment industry.
Real estate software company RealPage has agreed to stop sharing nonpublic information between landlords as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice.
A legislative package to end the government shutdown appears on track. A handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to advance the bill after what's become a deepening disruption of federal programs and services. But hurdles remain. Senators are hopeful they can pass the package as soon as Monday and send it to the House. What’s in and out of the bipartisan deal has drawn criticism and leaves few senators fully satisfied. The legislation includes funding for SNAP food aid and other programs while ensuring backpay for furloughed federal workers. But it fails to fund expiring health care subsidies Democrats have been fighting for, pushing that debate off for a vote next month.
Sabrina Siddiqui, National Politics Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins to break down the SNAP funding delays and the human cost of the ongoing shutdown.
Arguments at the Supreme Court have concluded for the day as the justices consider President Donald Trump's sweeping unilateral tariffs in a trillion-dollar test of executive power.
President Donald Trump said he has decided to lower his combined tariff rates on imports of Chinese goods to 47% after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking.
The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for a second time this year as it seeks to shore up economic growth and hiring even as inflation stays elevated. The move comes amid a fraught time for the central bank, with hiring sluggish and yet inflation stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. Compounding its challenges, the central bank is navigating without much of the economic data it typically relies on from the government. The Fed has signaled it may reduce its key rate again in December but the data drought raises the uncertainty around its next moves. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters that there were “strongly differing views” at the central bank's policy meeting about to proceed going forward.
U.S. and Chinese officials say a trade deal between the world’s two largest economies is drawing closer. The sides have reached an initial consensus for President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to aim to finalize during their high-stakes meeting Thursday in South Korea. Any agreement would be a relief to international markets. Trump's treasury secretary says discussions with China yielded preliminary agreements to stop the precursor chemicals for fentanyl from coming into the United States. Scott Bessent also says Beijing would make “substantial” purchases of soybean and other agricultural products while putting off export controls on rare earth elements needed for advanced technologies.
