Cory Booker: I Alone Can Bring In The Black Voters

Sen. Cory Booker writes for Essence Magazine:



I’ve heard a lot about how anxious Democrats across the country are about the current front runners in the presidential campaign — Vice President Biden, Senator Sanders, Senator Warren and Mayor Buttigieg — and who, if any of them, can beat Donald Trump.

And I get it, I want Donald Trump out of office. The community I go home to, and the communities I have visited all over the country, cannot take four more years of this President. To me, this election is as serious and as personal as it gets.

But we as Democrats deserve more than just a candidate who claims they can beat Donald Trump– that’s the floor, it’s not the ceiling. The Democratic Party is a diverse party. We have been since 1936, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt got 71 percent of the Black vote.

In a party and a country that is only becoming more diverse, the ability to build multi-racial, multi-ethnic coalitions is not a nice-to-have — it’s a job requirement. I’m the only person in this race who has demonstrated time and time again, with only my own name on the ballot, an ability to turn out the vote and win in a heavily Black electorate.