Newark Mayor Cory Booker is picking up support from at least one former Republican senator in his bid for U.S. Senate.
A political action committee run by former Sen. Al D'Amato (R-N.Y.), now a lobbyist, donated $1,000 to Booker in the latest fundraising period, Capital Tonight reports. The donation was part of the $4.6 million that Booker announced he raised in the last quarter.
Booker is facing off against U.S. Reps. Rush Holt and Frank Pallone and state Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver in New Jersey's Aug. 13 special Democratic primary for the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D) last month.
Booker, who holds a commanding lead in the primary, announced that 2,027 of his 7,000 individual contributions last quarter came from New Jersey residents. In a statement, his campaign said that he has raised $6.5 million since launching his Senate bid in January and has $4.5 million on hand.
Lautenberg's family has endorsed Pallone. Lautenberg and Booker had a fractured relationship prior to the senator's death, since Booker announced his interest in the Senate seat before Lautenberg had announced his plan to retire in 2014.
Booker formally entered this year's Senate race last month, after Gov. Chris Christie (R) called the August primary and Oct. 16 special election following Lautenberg's death.
Oliver, the Assembly speaker, has lagged behind in the polls and has had a virtually nonexistent campaign since entering the race last month. She, too, first expressed interest in the Senate race in January, but is only now beginning to raise money for her Senate bid.
The local politics website PolitickerNJ reported that Oliver went after her three Democratic rivals in a fundraising email that also noted Booker's ties to Christie, whom she has opposed as speaker.
"New Jersey doesn’t need a friend of Chris Christie representing us in the United States Senate," she wrote in the email. "And, we don’t need yet another career Washington politician either. We need real change. Right now."
Yet Oliver's own political patron has close ties to the governor, too. Oliver works in the administration of Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo, a powerful Democrat who endorsed both Christie and Booker in their respective races this year.
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