US election: Cory Booker drops out of the Democrat presidential race

Cory Booker drops out of the Democrat presidential race, saying he no longer has the money to compete with the frontrunners.

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker has pulled out of the 2020 Presidential White House race.

Cory Booker has dropped out of the Democrat presidential race, saying he no longer has the money to compete with the frontrunners.

His departure came after the New Jersey Senator once again failed to qualify for the latest Democrat presidential debate on Wednesday (AEDT) with his national approval rating struck at only 1.8 per cent.

“It was a difficult decision to make, but I got in this race to win, and I’ve always said I wouldn’t continue if there was no longer a path to victory,” Mr Booker said in a statement.

“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.”

The 50-year-old former mayor of Newark was one of the stronger Democrat performers on the campaign trail but this never translated into high poll numbers.

His campaign theme of unity and optimism did not resonate strongly with those Democrats looking for a more aggressive candidate to take on Donald Trump.

The president taunted Mr Booker after he dropped out. “Really Big Breaking News (Kidding): Booker, who was in zero polling territory, just dropped out of the Democrat Presidential Primary Race. Now I can rest easy tonight. I was sooo concerned that I would someday have to go head to head with him!” Mr Trump tweeted.

Really Big Breaking News (Kidding): Booker, who was in zero polling territory, just dropped out of the Democrat Presidential Primary Race. Now I can rest easy tonight. I was sooo concerned that I would someday have to go head to head with him!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 13, 2020

Mr Booker never reached more than 5 per cent support in polls and his numbers faded further ever since he failed to qualify for both the November and the December debates, robbing him of any chance of resurrecting his campaign.

Although 12 Democrat candidates remain in the race, the polls suggest that only six of them, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar and Michael Bloomberg have any realistic chance of winning the nomination.

Mr Booker’s withdrawal coincided with an op-ed by former New York major Mr Bloomberg in which the billionaire criticised the fact that the first two states to vote in the Democrat primaries, Iowa and New Hampshire, were dominated by white voters.

“The Democratic Party reflects America’s incredible diversity. But the first two voting states, Iowa and New Hampshire, are among the most homogenous in the nation,” Mr Bloomberg wrote. “While it’s great that candidates reach out to voters in these states at every pancake breakfast and town hall around, what about African-American, Latino, Asian American, Pacific Islanders, and other voters in places like Detroit, Montgomery, Phoenix, and Houston?”

Mr Bloomberg is not contesting Iowa or New Hampshire because he entered the race too late to register in those States.

Cory Booker has dropped out of the presidential race.

Instead he is relying on an unprecedented spending campaign to win the larger more delegate-rich states later in the later primary election cycle.

Mr Booker’s withdrawal leaves only one African American, former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, in the race but Mr Patrick is coming last in the polls with less than one per cent support.

Some Democrats are alarmed at the lack of racial diversity among the remaining Democrat contenders with Mr Booker’s decision coming after the withdrawal of the only hispanic candidate Julian Castro and another African American Kamala Harris.

In his farewell message, Mr Booker said he did not regret campaigning on a message of unity and optimism.

“I believed to my core that the answer to the common pain Americans are feeling right now, the answer to Donald Trump’s hatred and division, is to reignite our spirit of common purpose to take on our biggest challenges and build a more just and fair country for everyone,” Mr Booker wrote.

“I’ve always believed that. I still believe that. I’m proud I never compromised my faith in these principles during this campaign to score political points or tear down others. And maybe I’m stubborn, but I’ll never abandon my faith in what we can accomplish when we join together.”

Mr Booker will instead seek re-election in the Senate in November.

(Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia)