Newark Mayor Cory Booker has won the U.S. Senate seat after a special election in New Jersey yesterday. His opponent, Steve Lonegan, is the former mayor of Bogota, N.J. known for his conservative views and tea party membership.
The victory makes Booker the first-ever African American U.S. Senator from New Jersey and the first African American to be elected to the Senate since Barack Obama in 2004.
During his victory speech at the Prudential Center in Newark, he said: “Despite the cynicism and the negativity we often see on TV, despite a special election, New Jerseyans, hundreds of thousands, rejected all that and came out and voted. But more than that, you didn’t just vote, but you believed that your voice and your vote mattered.”
A graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School, Booker?s win has sparked talks of a vice presidential pick in 2014.
Read more at The New York Times.
