PELHAM, New Hampshire — Cory Booker took a veiled dig at Democratic presidential candidates such as Joe Biden on Sunday, who err on the side of pragmatism.

“There’s one word I can’t stand: it’s ‘realistically.’ And the reason why I can’t stand is because I was the mayor of a city that had decades of crime and corruption as its reputation,” the New Jersey senator and former Newark mayor told voters in Pelham, New Hampshire, a Republican-heavy town in the Granite State.