Cory Booker’s large campaign staff and long list of endorsements are up for grabs — if candidates put in the time and money.
With just three weeks left until the Iowa caucuses, the end of Booker’s Democratic presidential bid leaves an opportunity for remaining candidates to snap up field organizers and experienced staff already on the ground in Iowa and ready to go.
The New Jersey senator, 50, built a large campaign team early, spending more money on campaign staff salaries than any other candidate in the race through September 2019. By October, he had more than 50 paid staff members in Iowa alone.
Both Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg have more than 100 paid staff in the state, and former Vice President Joe Biden has more than 150. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has more than 130.
It is unclear, though, which campaigns have the financial flexibility to hire ex-Booker field organizers quickly. Sanders led the last quarter of 2019 in fundraising with $34.5 million, followed by Buttigieg at $24.7 million, Biden at $22.7 million, and Warren at $21.2 million. But none of the campaigns revealed their cash on hand and are not required to disclose that number until the Federal Election Commission filing deadline on Jan. 31. As of Sept. 30, Sanders had the biggest war chest of the four at $34 million. Biden had the smallest with $9 million.
Candidates can also court the many public figures who pledged support to Booker ahead of the Iowa caucuses. The New Jersey senator had the highest number of endorsements from local officials and activists in Iowa of any candidate in the race, according to Iowa Starting Line. While his endorsement list does not include the biggest names in Iowa politics — Buttigieg and Biden secured endorsements from two of the three Iowa members of Congress, and Biden snagged former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack — some think that endorsements from local activists and experienced caucusgoers can help generate support for a candidate in grassroots networks and make a better case for a candidate during the chaotic caucus process.
Though Booker hovered in the low single digits in polls, with the top-tier presidential candidates tightly grouped above 15%, a candidate able to woo a large segment of voters who had planned to support Booker could swing the race. The RealClearPolitics average of Iowa polls finds Biden with 20.7% support, Sanders with 20.3%, Buttigieg with 18.7%, and Warren at 16%. Booker had 3% in the average.
[Read more: ‘I was sooo concerned’: Trump mocks Cory Booker after he drops presidential bid]
In most polls, Booker supporters’ other preferences were unknown because his support was not statistically significant enough to be broken down. But according to Patrick Murray, director of Monmouth University Polling Institute, there seems to be no dominant second-choice candidate among Booker supporters.
“They pretty much evenly scattered across the top contenders,” Murray said in a tweet Monday. “Another sign that there are not clear lane assignments in 2020.”
A Monmouth poll of likely Iowa caucusgoers released Monday, which was conducted before Booker dropped out, found that assigning Booker supporters to their second choices barely moved the needle. Biden, Buttigieg, Warren, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar each went up a point. Sanders’ support remained the same.
