Cory Booker met his $1.7 million end-of-quarter fundraising goal on Sunday, preventing him from having to make good on his ultimatum that he would drop out of the presidential race if he did not raise those funds.
“Thanks to this outpouring of support, we see a viable path forward to continue growing a winning campaign. I’m staying in this race — and I’m in it to win,” Booker said in a statement.
The New Jersey senator’s campaign told supporters on Sept. 21 that if he did not raise $1.7 million in the 10 days before the end of the year’s third fundraising quarter he would drop out of the race.
“If we’re not able to build the campaign organization, which can raise money that we need to win the nomination, Cory’s not going to continue running and consuming resources that are better used on beating Donald Trump,” campaign manager Addisu Demissie said at the time.
Having met $1,783,504 in donations at the end of Sunday after announcing the goal, Booker has his sights on raising an additional $217,000 to hit the $2 million mark by midnight tonight. Demissie pledged to go vegan for the month of October if the campaign reaches that goal, adopting the same diet as Booker.
“I’ll be asking more of my supporters as we move forward in this campaign together,” Booker said.
During his fundraising push, Booker surpassed 165,000 unique individual donors, one of the qualification metrics for the November Democratic presidential primary debate. He still needs two more 3% or higher qualifying polls to secure his spot on the debate stage.
