Booker says he’s 15,000 donors short of qualifying for debate

Cory Booker said on Saturday that he’s still 15,000 donors shy of the 130,000 threshold he needs to qualify in the fall Democratic presidential debates.

“Bernie Sanders did. Joe Biden did. Kamala Harris did. Andrew Yang did. And Pete Buttigieg did. Beto O’Rourke has probably reached it, too,” said Booker.  “Now the question is whether other candidates will reach that tough measure of grassroots strength before the cutoff.”

Booker said he picked up 20,000 donors in the ten days since the first debate.  The deadline is August 28.

Democratic National Committee rules require candidates to be at 2% in multiple public polls, in addition to the 130,000 unique donors.

Only polls taken between June 28 and August 28 will be considered.

Booker and nineteen other candidates have already qualified for the July 30-31 debates in Detroit.

Booker was at between 1% and 3% in a series of polls released last week:

* ABC News/Washington Post on July 3: 1%
* Economist/YouGov on July 3: 2%
* Quinnipiac on July 2: 3%
* Harvard/Harris on July 2: 3%
* USA Today/Suffolk on July 2: 2%
* CNN on July 1: 3%
* The Hill/HarrisX on July 1: 2%

Booker has a Real Clear Politics polling average of 2.2%.