Convention Insider: Cory Booker Never Stops

The New Jersey senator is giving speeches, posing for selfies, schmoozing with delegates. How many breakfasts has he attended at the D.N.C.? Fifteen so far.

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By Nick Corasaniti

Reporting from Chicago

Aug. 22, 2024, 1:51 p.m. ET

When Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey arrived at the Pennsylvania delegation breakfast on Thursday, he had already taken a dozen selfies, missed three elevators and fist-bumped a security guard. He was wiping sweat off his head with a table napkin.

All before he spoke a word.

“My voice is shot,” Mr. Booker, the guest speaker, told the crowd of familiar faces from New Jersey’s swing state neighbor to the west. But that didn’t stop him. As he neared the end of his 10-minute talk, Mr. Booker hopped off the stage and waded among the smattering of breakfast tables, shouting as much as his fatigued vocal cords would allow.

Conventions can feel like the Olympics for politicians, with dozens of speeches to give, donors to woo, tributes to pay and panels to anchor. Mr. Booker turns conventions into decathlons.

By Thursday, he was running on adrenaline, a fridge full of vegan food in his hotel room and little sleep — 3 hours 17 minutes on Wednesday night, according to his Oura smart ring, which he quipped was in “open rebellion” against him. Since arriving in Chicago on Sunday night for the Democratic National Convention, Mr. Booker has not allowed for any white space on his calendar.

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Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey was instructed to ad-lib during a blank spot on the schedule at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday.Credit…Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York Times

That may be because the convention has felt like a realization of the campaign he wanted to run. His failed 2020 presidential campaign was an unrelenting tour of joy, hope and optimism, messages that Democratic primary voters were largely uninterested in four years ago. Now, at least in the cavernous convention hall, Democrats are leaning into the joy and eating it up.

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