Booker Campaign Leaving Nothing to Chance

So far this week, there’s been nothing but good news for everyone in the U.S. Senate race named Cory Booker.

On Monday morning, his campaign announced it would spend some of the $4.5 million cash on hand it has collected since March on numerous strategic hires, including field directors and a deputy communications director.

Later Monday, a fellow mayor from across the Hudson River, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, held a fundraiser at his home to benefit Booker’s campaign. Booker has also got two other big-name fundraisers in the offing, hosted by Oprah Winfrey and Ivanka Trump, respectively.

On Tuesday, a Monmouth University poll confirmed that Booker is light years ahead of his Democratic rivals – state Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver and U.S. Reps. Rush Holt and Frank Pallone – with just less than a month before the Aug. 13 special primary election. Booker is polling at 49 percent of likely voters in that poll, which followed similar results from a Quinnipiac poll released last week.

Later Tuesday, Booker – the only candidate currently airing television commercials – announced three new Spanish language radio and television ads promising “less debating and more action.’’

On Wednesday, as Booker was delivering a message about the importance of manufacturing jobs to an improved American economy, Time published a story in which the magazine offhandedly referred to a Booker Senate seat win a nearly a foregone conclusion.

But ask members of the campaign to gauge the strength of the political winds at Booker’s back and you get a nose-to-the-grindstone response.

“We are ignoring the polls,” Booker spokesman Kevin Griffis said. “This is an unprecedented special election, and the turnout is an unknown. We’re going to spend the next 27 days working for every single vote and talking to New Jerseyans about the mayor’s record of taking on tough challenges and getting things done.”

It’s not as though Booker’s competitors are sitting this out, though.

Thomas Seay, a Holt spokesman, said the Senate race could change dramatically in the next 27 days.

In the latest poll, Holt pulls in 8 percent of likely voters to Booker’s 49 percent.

But Seay pointed to a statistic in the most Monmouth University Poll, showing that 43 percent of those polled had no idea there was a special primary election for the Senate seat on Aug. 13.

“It goes without saying that, under these circumstances, the dynamics of the race can shift very quickly,’’ Seay said.