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Cory Booker hits fund-raising goal, will stay in presidential race

Now the challenge for New Jersey's Cory Booker is to convert the cash surge into tangible public support.

Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) walks to the stage at the Polk County Steak Fry, a huge gathering of Democrats in Des Moines, Iowa, on Sept. 21. His campaign said Monday he hit a self-imposed fund-raising goal that will allow him to stay in the race.
Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) walks to the stage at the Polk County Steak Fry, a huge gathering of Democrats in Des Moines, Iowa, on Sept. 21. His campaign said Monday he hit a self-imposed fund-raising goal that will allow him to stay in the race.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker is staying in the Democratic presidential race after reaching his self-imposed $1.7 million fund-raising goal late Sunday, hitting a mark his team set nine days earlier in an urgent plea for help.

“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 Monday morning. “But this won’t be the last mountain we have to climb on our way to the nomination — we have a lot more money to raise to continue being competitive with the better-funded campaigns in this race.”

His statement then asked for $217,000 more in donations to put him over $2 million since his Sept. 21 call for support.

Booker’s campaign said on that day that he was in danger of dropping out of the race unless he could raise an additional $1.7 million by the end of Monday. In an unusually blunt memo and call with reporters, his campaign manager said they did not see a viable path forward without a fund-raising surge by the end of September, the deadline for the next set of campaign finance disclosures.

Booker has been among a number of Democratic senators and governors who have struggled to gain traction in the presidential race, lagging in polling and fund-raising despite receiving strong receptions at public events and in national debates.

His call for help led to his best nine-day stretch of fund-raising, his campaign said Monday, resulting in $1.78 million in donations as of the end of Sunday. Now Booker’s challenge is to convert the cash surge into tangible public support.