WASHINGTON—When Sen. Cory Booker made a long shot bid for president in 2020, his closest advisers begged him to take swings at Democratic primary opponents, telling him that polling showed the tactic was the only way to break through in a crowded field.
But the New Jersey senator refused to go negative, insisting on a message focused on love and unity, recalled Mo Butler, his former chief of staff and currently an adviser. His campaign floundered, and he dropped out
WASHINGTON—When Sen. Cory Booker made a long shot bid for president in 2020, his closest advisers begged him to take swings at Democratic primary opponents, telling him that polling showed the tactic was the only way to break through in a crowded field.
But the New Jersey senator refused to go negative, insisting on a message focused on love and unity, recalled Mo Butler, his former chief of staff and currently an adviser. His campaign floundered, and he dropped out before the first presidential contest in Iowa.
Now—as he contemplates another run for the White House—Booker is changing his tune. In a moment last month on the Senate floor that stunned Democrats, he accused colleagues of being complicit in President Trump’s purported abuses, raising his voice, jabbing his finger, eyes darting around the room. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said, throwing his arms up.
Other Democratic senators were taken aback, wondering: What has gotten into Booker?
In an interview, the 56-year-old senator says kindness is still his brand: tough love, if you will.
“Sometimes kindness is telling the truth, is having the hard conversations,” Booker said.
He said his comments last month were delivered “with maybe a little too much passion.” But he said his efforts were fundamentally on point in the current moment. “The Democratic Party and Americans writ large have to find better ways to stand up and fight,” he said.
For years, Booker has cut a joyful figure around the Capitol, cramming his 6-foot-3-inch frame into the Senate’s subway cars, taking selfies with interns and bantering with colleagues from both parties. But these aren’t normal times for Democrats, who are frantically trying to turn public opinion their way.
Since Trump’s return to the White House, Democrats have struggled to offer an alternative. Democratic base voters are despondent over what they see as a lack of fight from their leaders, and independents aren’t sold either. The Democratic Party has its lowest approval rating in 35 years, according to a recent Wall Street Journal poll.
So these days, even the Senate’s Mr. Nice Guy is throwing some punches.
Booker made a headline-grabbing, restroom-defying marathon speech this spring to protest Trump’s second-term actions, breaking the record held by late segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. He staged a sit-in on the Capitol steps with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) and traveled to GOP-dominated parts of the country to highlight what Democrats see as the damage of Trump’s signature “big, beautiful bill,” which cuts spending on Medicaid and food stamps while extending tax cuts.
But the clearest sign of a more pugnacious Booker came in the showdown with fellow Democrats.
Booker fumed for months
Booker had been fuming for months that the Trump administration was withholding police grants to Democratic-led states, in what was seen as punishment for liberal immigration policies.
He tried on the Senate floor to stop the conditioning of grants. When Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D., Nev.) and Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) declined to oblige his request to amend a bipartisan package, he unloaded. “It’s time for Democrats to have a backbone,” Booker told his colleagues.
Cortez Masto and Klobuchar pointed out that the legislation had moved through the legislative process with no previous objection from Booker and implied he was grandstanding. Cortez Masto, who led Senate Democrats successful 2020 campaign, signaled she believed Booker was being unhelpful.
“As a senator from a swing state, when it comes to issues that our voters care about, we have to as a Democratic Party be common sense,” she said in an interview. “They don’t want to hear Democrats talking about defunding police. They don’t want to hear that there’s open borders.”
Booker, who said that other Democrats shared his concerns, said he was fighting to get police in New Jersey more money, not less.
Republicans said Booker was looking for publicity.
“He was looking at the camera the whole time, so he was getting clippable moments to send to the base,” said Sen. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), who was presiding over the Senate floor during the clash. “I’m glad that they can keep going further and further to the radical left, because it means we’re going to keep winning elections as Republicans.”
It was a prominent skirmish in the intraparty fight that has dogged the Democratic Party all year. The battle will likely heat up again when Congress returns from August recess to deal with funding federal agencies beyond Sept. 30—and Democrats will weigh whether they are willing to shut down the government as leverage.
Getting donors’ attention
For Booker, the liberal fighter look is working with donors. He raised $10 million in the second quarter of 2025 between his campaign and a joint fundraising committee. He is the second-best fundraiser overall among the Senate candidates running in 2026, despite not having a very competitive race, according to campaign finance data. Money raised for Senate races could later be used in a presidential run.
One pair of Booker supporters were asked to give this spring to a Booker-aligned entity but decided to hold off. Then came Booker’s record-breaking 25-hour floor speech. The donors were excited and decided to give tens of thousands of dollars, according to a person familiar with the donations.
Booker, in the interview, said he wasn’t ruling out another run for president. He is among at least a dozen Democrats who are considered to be contenders for the Democratic nomination in 2028, a group that also includes California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
People who have watched Booker’s career say he is tapping back into the politician he was during his time in Newark, N.J. As a councilman, Booker pitched a tent and staged a 10-day hunger strike outside a housing complex to draw attention to its deplorable conditions. Booker then unseated a longtime Democratic mayor, a bid chronicled in a documentary called “Street Fight.”
During the 2020 election, Booker made one big punch—calling President Joe Biden an “architect of mass incarceration” for his criminal-justice record—but then quickly retreated from going after his rivals so personally. Booker’s friends tease him “all the time” for his instinct to be too nice, according to Butler, the adviser.
Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, one of a handful of senators Booker calls close friends, said that hand-wringing about Democratic infighting was overblown.
“I actually think people need to get a little desensitized to disagreements among Democrats. We don’t have to treat it like it’s some apocalyptic moment. Healthy parties have disagreements,” said Schatz.
Write to Siobhan Hughes at Siobhan.hughes@wsj.com, Eliza Collins at eliza.collins@wsj.com and Jasmine Li at jasmine.li@wsj.com
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