2020 Democratic hopeful Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey sent a campaign email suggesting Democratic primary voters are racist for not helping him to meet the donor qualifications for the December debate stage.
The email reads as follow:
As the current December debate lineup stands, not a single one of the candidates who will appear on stage in a person of color.
This is a shame … The 2020 Democratic field promised one of — if not the — most diverse sets of candidates in modern history, though you wouldn’t see that from looking at the frontrunners.
Our party is better than this. It’s time we show it.
In which Cory Booker openly suggests his own party is racist if he isn’t on the next debate stage despite polling worse than the flu pic.twitter.com/QRNMb3I0c5
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) December 5, 2019
It’s not race that hinders Booker’s eligibility for the Democratic debate stage. It’s his poorly run campaign and low polling numbers.
Booker is currently polling at 2 percent nationally. In order to qualify for the December debate stage, the DNC requires a candidate poll at 3 percent or higher in at least four polls. Candidates may also qualify if they receive 5 percent or more support in two single-state polls in either Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and, or Nevada.
Per the DNC, in order to qualify, a candidate also needs to receive 165,000 unique donors and a minimum of 600 unique donors per state in at least 20 states.
Booker has not qualified in any polls or met the threshold for the required amount of donors. He also lacks support among African-American voters. Not to mention, Booker’s campaign has focused entirely on criminal justice issues instead of adding nuanced plans for education-based issues that may have helped rebuild the Obama-era coalition a Democratic candidate desperately needs. Booker was relatively successful in combatting education-based issues, when he was Mayor of Newark, New Jersey, yet his campaign hasn’t focused on those successes at all.
Campaigning on the color of his skin is not validated by any standard of success in politics. Instead, it’s a way for Booker to play victim instead of taking responsibility for his lackluster campaign.
