NJ Green Party Candidate To Sen. Booker: Now You Know How We Feel

NEWARK, NJ — The frustration that Sen. Cory Booker is likely experiencing this week is a familiar feeling for Green Party members in New Jersey, according to Madelyn Hoffman.

On Monday, Hoffman, the Green Party of New Jersey candidate for Senate in 2020, said she understands why Booker chose to end his campaign for president in 2020.

• See related article: Sen. Cory Booker Drops Out Of Presidential Race

“If anyone knows about the difficulties of competing on a level playing field in the U.S. electoral system, it’s the Green Party,” Hoffman asserted.

According to Hoffman, the reasons why Booker reportedly ended his campaign – a lack of funds and poor poll showings that kept him out of the Democratic Party debates – aren’t his sole burden to bear.

“We know all too well the story of being left out of important debates, presidential or otherwise, because we haven’t raised enough money or scored high enough in polls,” Hoffman said. “These polls can be manipulated by corporate or special interests in our cases to even fail to include us.”

One such case took place during the 2018 election for U.S. Senate, the Green Party of New Jersey (GPNJ) previously claimed.

That election, which featured Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob Menendez and Republican challenger Bob Hugin, also included several third-party candidates, Hoffman among them.

The GPNJ said that they took issue with a Stockton University poll leading up to election day, calling it "seriously flawed" because it only mentioned a single third-party candidate by name – Libertarian Murray Sabrin – and snubbed their own candidate, Hoffman.

"In order to be the most useful and accurate, all political polls like this one should name all candidates for the position sought," the GPNJ stated. "This is not the first poll on the U.S. Senate race in New Jersey that has not named all the candidates in the race. [A Quinnipiac poll] made exactly the same error. So have all the polls conducted by Gravis, Fairleigh Dickinson and Monmouth University… This practice is unfair both to the candidates and to the voters."

• See related article: Third-Parties Keep Truckin' In New Jersey

CAMPAIGN FUNDING

Hoffman, one of the candidates seeking to unseat Booker in the Senate this year, said campaign funding is a particularly thorny issue that Garden State voters will be looking at this year.

“Now that Senator Booker will return to campaigning in New Jersey, we will pay close attention to where he gets his money and what interests they represent,” Hoffman said.

Booker had pledged to reject donations from “corporate PACs and federal lobbyists” as part of his 2020 presidential campaign, but it wasn’t enough for some progressives in his home state.

Last year, a coalition of activist groups rallied at Booker’s presidential campaign fundraiser in Essex County, blasting the senator for accepting support from fellow Democratic Party leaders George Norcross and Joseph DiVincenzo Jr. The $2,800-per-person luncheon at Nanina's in the Park in Belleville was spearheaded by Norcross, DiVincenzo and attorney Michael Critchley.

• See related article: Protesters Rally At Cory Booker POTUS Fundraiser In Belleville

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