Booker notes ‘anger’ over more billionaires than black candidates in 2020 race

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) expressed anger Wednesday following fellow Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) dropping out of the Democratic presidential primary race Tuesday.

“It’s a damn shame, frankly, that Kamala Harris’s voice is no longer in this race,” Booker told BuzzFeed News’s AM to DM.

“I’ve seen the bile, the anger, from my family members, to people in the Congressional Black Caucus, to leaders of color across this country who just don’t understand how we’ve gotten to a point now where there’s more billionaires in the 2020 race than there are black people,” Booker added.

“We just don’t understand how we’ve gotten to a point now that there’s more billionaires in the 2020 race than there are black people.” @CoryBooker responds to Sen. Kamala Harris dropping out of the race pic.twitter.com/QrgEoM5dio

— AM2DM by BuzzFeed News (@AM2DM) December 4, 2019

Harris, considered to be one of the most promising candidates in the beginning of the primary race, suspended her campaign Tuesday due to a shortage of campaign funds. 

“My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue,” she said in a statement.

Harris, Booker and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick are the only remaining black candidates in the 15-person field. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro and businessman Andrew Yang are the only other people of color in the race.

Castro has also spoken out about Harris’s exit, saying Tuesday that the media held Harris to “a different standard.”

Two billionaires, Tom Steyer and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, are still in the primary race, and Steyer has qualified for this month’s Democratic debate.

According to RealClearPolitics’s average of polls, Steyer is polling nationally at 1.4 percent. By comparison, Booker, who hasn’t qualified for this month’s debate yet, is polling at 2 percent.

To qualify for the Dec. 19 debate, Booker has to reach two Democratic National Committee benchmarks by Dec. 12: Over 200,000 unique campaign donors and four polls showing him with the support of at least 4 percent of voters.

Booker also criticized these requirements to BuzzFeed.

“To have some artificial rules that would’ve cut out Jimmy Carter, that would’ve cut out Bill Clinton likely, that even Obama, who was 20 points behind Hillary Clinton at this point, in terms of what the polls say is viability — the polling has never predicted who would go on and win from our party,” Booker said.