While the Garden State struggles with crumbling infrastructure, unaffordable housing, and a healthcare system stretched to its limits, Booker has been busy courting California’s elite, pocketing their donations, and positioning himself as a de facto representative of a coast he doesn’t even call home.
“New Jersey deserves a senator who fights for New Jersey, not one who treats our state as a stepping stone to higher office, funded by California’s richest power brokers,” said Lisa McCormick, the anti-establishment progressive who took on Booker ally Bob Menendez in 2018, with a hit tip to the late US Senator Frank Lautenberg. “If Cory Booker can’t—or won’t—prioritize the needs of his home state, maybe it’s time voters found someone who will put New Jersey first.”
A Senator for Sale—to the Highest (Coastal) Bidder
Booker’s campaign finance reports read like a love letter to California’s wealthiest donors. Over his career, he has vacuumed up nearly $10 million from the Golden State—just a hair less than what he’s raised in his own backyard.
In the current election cycle, California cash accounts for a staggering 25.8% of his war chest, outpacing New Jersey by $1.5 million. This isn’t just fundraising—it’s a full-blown financial affair, one that raises serious questions about whose interests Booker truly serves.
Why such devotion to a state 3,000 miles away? The answer is as obvious as it is cynical.
California’s liberal megadonors—tech billionaires, Hollywood power players, and real estate moguls—offer the kind of cash flow that New Jersey’s working-class voters simply can’t match.
Booker, ever the opportunist, has been more than willing to play for those able to pay, even when that is a long way from where he is supposed to be working.
California’s tech billionaires and venture capitalists bankroll Booker because he embraces a brand of neoliberal, market-driven “reform” that benefits them.
This includes his support for charter schools over public education, deregulated tech sectors that bypass labor protections, and gig economy schemes like crypto, automation, and AI. These Silicon Valley-driven policies don’t address the structural needs of New Jersey’s diverse, union-heavy, working-class economy—and in many cases, actively undermine working-class New Jerseyans.
“Senator Cory Booker’s political ambitions have always burned brighter than his loyalty to New Jersey,” said McCormick, who noted that Lautenberg warned Booker would be a show horse and not a work horse.
Political Tourism at Taxpayer Expense
Booker’s frequent California excursions aren’t just about shaking hands and kissing babies—they’re strategic investments in his own political future.
Booker’s campaigns have consistently drawn millions from California ZIP codes like Beverly Hills, Menlo Park, and San Francisco.
“This California donor base gives him political independence from New Jersey voters,” said McCormick. “When his biggest backers are hedge fund managers and entertainment moguls on the West Coast, Booker’s less likely to confront powerful New Jersey institutions or industries, and more likely to chase celebrity endorsements than fight for labor protections or utility regulation back home.”
His keynote speech at the California Democratic Party convention in May 2025 wasn’t just a routine appearance; it was a blatant audition for a future presidential run, a chance to woo the deep-pocketed donors who could bankroll another vanity White House bid.
“Real change does not come from Washington. It comes from communities. It comes from the streets. It comes from the people who’s standing up and have shown over and over again — against the powerful, against the elected, against the rich — that the power of the people is greater than the people in power,” Booker said to applause in California.
McCormick wryly noted that “Booker is powerful, elected, and rich, but I am from New Jersey communities, from New Jersey streets, and I am one of the people who are standing up for New Jersey.”
Then there’s his sudden interest in Imperial Beach, where he swooped in to grandstand about the Tijuana River sewage crisis—a photo op masquerading as policy engagement.
Never mind that New Jersey has its own environmental disasters, from toxic Superfund sites to lead-contaminated water in Newark. Booker would rather play eco-warrior in sunny California than roll up his sleeves for the communities that actually elected him.
“New Jersey’s multiple sewage crises are public health time bombs, disproportionately harming low-income and minority communities while politicians delay infrastructure funding,” said McCormick. “Without urgent action, these toxic waters will keep poisoning residents, wildlife, and local economies.”
“This isn’t just negligence—it’s environmental violence against our most vulnerable citizens,” said McCormick, who praised activists who spent years sounding the alarm about New Jersey’s crumbling water infrastructure. “From Newark to Camden, working-class neighborhoods are bearing the brunt of a crisis created by political cowardice and corporate greed. These aren’t accidents—they’re the direct result of a system that prioritizes profits over people.”
In Newark, the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission—one of the largest sewage systems in the state—spills millions of gallons of untreated waste into the Passaic River, yet Senator Booker gleefully accepts support from commissioners who disregard for environmental justice.
Just miles away, the Raritan Bay remains a toxic dumping ground where decades of illegal sludge discharges have turned fishing beds into hazardous waste zones.
Booker’s visit to the Golden State is a flimsy excuse for what amounts to a cash grab disguised as nostalgia, rather than doing his job in New Jersey, where plenty of places could use some attention.
In Camden, where poverty rates soar, the city’s antiquated sewer system vomits 1.2 billion gallons of sewage-tainted stormwater into the Delaware River every year.
In Hudson County, more than 200 overflow points have turned the Hudson into a bacterial minefield, with park closures and E. coli warnings becoming routine.
And in Elizabeth, where regulators recently slapped a $1.3 million fine on the local sewer authority for bypassing treatment protocols, residents whisper about strange rashes and unexplained illnesses.
Instead, he’s rubbing elbows with Silicon Valley executives and Beverly Hills socialites—hardly the kind of people struggling with the issues his grandparents might have faced.
While Booker jets between fundraisers in Los Angeles and policy roundtables in San Francisco, New Jersey’s problems fester.
The state’s affordable housing crisis worsens, its public transit system crumbles, and its working-class families are priced out of their own communities.
Yet Booker’s legislative record remains suspiciously light on bold, Garden State-specific solutions.
Worse, his coziness with California’s elite raises the specter of policy favoritism.
Did his support for tech-friendly regulations come with strings attached? Did his opposition to stricter antitrust enforcement align a little too neatly with the interests of his Silicon Valley backers? The money trail suggests an uncomfortable answer.
A Senator Without a State or a State Without a Senator?
Cory Booker has spent years cultivating an image as a progressive champion, a man of the people, but his campaign coffers tell a different story—one of a politician more invested in coastal glamour than in the gritty realities of his own constituents.