Cory Booker: I don’t want to stick around if I’m not in race to win it

Sen. Cory A. Booker on Monday said his dire plea for cash is working, but he is at risk of joining the fast-growing list of failed 2020 Democratic presidential contenders.

The Booker campaign said it has raised more than $500,000 since issuing an apocalyptic memo Saturday warning that if it didn’t raise close to $2 million by the end of the month, it wouldn’t have the resources to sustain a built-to-last campaign.

“I don’t want to stick around if I’m not in this to win it, and so we put out this challenge, nearly $2 million, really for us to stay in this race,” the New Jersey Democrat said Monday on MSNBC. “We got still a little bit of a hill to climb.”

Over the weekend, Booker campaign manager Addisu Demissie announced that the campaign was embarking on the “herculean” challenge of raising $1.7 million in 10 days, saying the New Jersey senator would be well-positioned to secure the nomination as long as he had the resources to do so.

“Without a fundraising surge to close out this quarter, we do not see a legitimate long-term path forward,” Mr. Demissie said in the memo.

The Booker campaign said it brought in more than $500,000 within about 48 hours of making the announcement, after bringing in about $4.5 million during the entire fundraising quarter that covered April, May and June.

The money plea came a day after New York Mayor Bill de Blasio threw in the towel for his long-shot run. He was the seventh Democratic contender to drop out of the crowded race since July.

Mr. Booker is trying to do whatever he can to gain traction. He sits in eighth place in the latest RealClearPolitics average of national public polling on the race, just behind candidates such as former Rep. Beto O’Rourke and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

Though certainly attention-grabbing, the latest gambit also serves to highlight the fact that Mr. Booker has not been able to break into the upper tier of leading contenders, which includes former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Sen. Bernard Sanders.

“In real, authentic honesty there is a risk,” said Neil Sroka, a spokesman for the liberal advocacy group Democracy for America. “The obvious risk here is letting people know, hey, we’re struggling with raising the funds we need to continue on in this race and that we’re kind of at an existential moment.”

The campaign isn’t necessarily at risk of completely folding but needs the cash infusion to run the kind of campaign it will take to win the nomination, Mr. Demissie said in the memo.

With the field likely to winnow in the coming months, there’s no shame in calling it quits on your own terms, said Dan Callahan, a top Democratic Party official in Buchanan County, Iowa.

“If Mr. Booker thinks that somebody else is a better candidate and he steps aside and endorses, that’s a good thing for the Democratic Party,” Mr. Callahan said. “His campaign people, his workers are out there interacting in the community on a regular basis and [have] gotten a lot of recognition. He had the campaign staff for when that big moment happened, and the big moment never happened.”

Mr. Booker has preached themes such as “radical love” during an election season in which Democratic primary voters are spoiling for a brawl with President Trump, said Ben Dworkin, a political science professor at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey.

“Cory Booker’s narrative has largely been about bringing people together,” Mr. Dworkin said. “While he can fight and he has been in political fights and he’s not a political wimp by any stretch, it’s not his storyline. It’s not his narrative.”

Mr. Booker is trying to avoid the fate of Mr. de Blasio, who pulled the plug on his run during an appearance on MSNBC.

Mr. de Blasio, who campaigned on themes of combating wealth inequality and expanding government-run health care, said his experience left him with “no doubt” that the Democratic Party is moving in a more progressive direction.

“It really matters it was not just one progressive fighting, you know, nine moderates — that in fact it was a little bit more of a fair fight this time and there were a number of progressive voices,” he said on WNYC radio.

Mr. de Blasio qualified for the first two Democratic debates but failed to attract a groundswell of support among the party rank-and-file. He missed out on qualifying for the third debate, and was unlikely to qualify for the one next month, either.

“I don’t think Bill de Blasio ever found a lane to distinguish himself,” Mr. Dworkin said.

Still, there was value to having him in the race, Mr. Sroka said.

“Having him on the stage meant it wasn’t just Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders talking about ’Medicare for All’ or talking about the need for big, structural changes in this country to address the problems that existed before Donald Trump was in office,” he said.

Other candidates who have dropped out of the race include Rep. Eric Swalwell, former Sen. Mike Gravel, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Rep. Seth Moulton and Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand.

Mr. Hickenlooper has since announced a bid for Senate in Colorado.