As Republicans struggle to figure out who will take on Senator Cory Booker this year, the senator has drawn a new challenge – but it’s from a fellow Democrat who plans on running to Booker’s left.
Chris Fields, a self-described community organizer who previously held positions in the Hunterdon County Democratic Party, told the New Jersey Globe that he entered the Senate race in October and has been steadily building up his campaign since then.
“Six months ago, I had no intention of running for the United States Senate,” Fields said. “But in talking to people and seeing that it didn’t look like anyone was about to step up and challenge Booker – especially with his consistent support to send billions of dollars of weapons to the apartheid Israeli government, which it used to commit this genocide against the Palestinian people – I was like, ‘I’m going to do it. I’m going to stand up and run in this race.’”
Fields is a relative political newcomer; he was the Readington municipal Democratic vice chair and a member of the Hunterdon Democratic executive board, but now lives in Somerset County. He said the top issues driving his campaign are expanding access to housing, implementing universal health care, and raising wages, including a $25-an-hour minimum wage.
And Booker, Fields charged, has not shown the fighting spirit that Democratic primary voters are looking for, despite high-profile efforts like the senator’s 25-hour anti-Trump Senate speech last spring.
“One of the things I hear all the time – people mention that 24-hour speech, and they say, ‘What came of it? What benefits? What policies? What legislation came of it?’” Fields said. “It was a publicity stunt.”
Booker’s 2020 campaign shows how difficult the task for Fields, or any other Democrat who hopes to unseat the senator, will be. That year, Booker faced a challenge from Larry Hamm, a Bernie Sanders-aligned activist and former school board member in Newark, who tried to campaign as a progressive alternative; Booker ended up winning 88% to 12%.
Fields argued that the playing field has shifted since then, in no small part because of the death of the county line, New Jersey’s unique system that once gave party-backed candidates an edge on primary ballots. “That should open up the floor drastically,” Fields said.
But Fields has also spent the beginning of the year stuck in a fight with the Monmouth County Democratic Organization, which will hold a February 7 convention to determine its 2026 federal endorsements.
Because county committeemembers will be able to vote by mail, the filing deadline for candidates to declare their intention to run came quite early, on December 26. Fields missed the deadline, which he says was not sufficiently publicized, meaning that Booker will get the party’s endorsement uncontested; Monmouth County Democratic Chair Dyese Davis defended her party’s process and said that Fields will still be allowed to observe at the convention.
“Notice of the convention, including its rules and deadlines, was publicly posted and widely shared through our social media channels, email listserv, and website [starting on December 11],” Davis said in an email to Fields. “A number of candidates were able to locate the information and successfully file by the established deadline, demonstrating that the process was accessible and followed.”
Fields has requested he be allowed to compete at the convention anyways, citing the party’s “Exceptional Circumstances” provision, but Davis said that vote-by-mail ballots have already been printed and mailed.