White House hopeful Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) got a fundraising boost Thursday after he appeared in the first Democratic primary debate Wednesday evening.
Campaign Manager Addisu Demissie announced that Thursday was Booker’s second-best online fundraising day of the entire campaign in terms of both dollars raised and number of donors, falling only behind the haul from the campaign’s launch day.
{mosads}Booker made an effort to break out of the middle of the primary pack among with nine other Democrats on the Miami stage Wednesday night.
Booker made no serious missteps during the two-hour event and enjoyed the highest amount of speaking time of all the contenders at 10 minutes and 35 seconds, talking about a range of topics from health care to immigration and more.
“I think we hit a solid double, a solid double last night,” Booker said Thursday on Sirius XM’s “The Joe Madison Show.”
“People are still discovering me,” he added, noting that the campaign saw a surge in online donations after the debate. “I hope that continues. So a lot of the analytics coming out of the night showed that we gained ground, and I hope that momentum now continues to build.”
GoogleTrends showed that Booker was the most-searched candidate during the debate and the second-most searched candidate following the event.
Booker, a former Newark mayor who has long been seen as a rising Democratic star, has found himself mired in the middle of national and statewide primary polling as he faces off against roughly two dozen contenders, including several of his Senate colleagues who are also casting themselves as champions of progressive causes.