Booker says Dems need new leaders 'desperately'
By: Drew Pittock
USA Today
..... The midterm elections are less than six months away, and one Democratic senator, is sounding the alarm on the party's leadership and vision for the future.
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Speaking to Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union" on May 24, [2026] Senator Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, said the party "desperately needs new leadership," days after the Democratic National Committee released its autopsy of the 2024 election.
..... "We need to focus on the people, and the Democratic Party desperately needs new leadership and that's what's exciting me about this cycle," Booker said. "It's not only new leaders emerging, but a new vision for our party."
..... Booker pointed to three Democrats who he things represent the future of the party - Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico and Roy Cooper, the former governor of North Carolina and current Senate candidate.
..... "People are suffering, people are hurting, and they're going to support the leaders," Booker said. "And I'm seeing this in Talarico, in Ossoff, in Cooper in North Carolina, that those leaders are stepping and saying, 'I don't give a damp above parties. I care about people.' You cannot lead the people if they don't trust you, and that's what's lacking right now with the party apparatus."
..... Asked whether he still has "faith" in Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Booker demurred.
..... "I am telling people left and right we are five months out from the election. What is going to make the Republicans gleeful is if we're talking about each other in the Democratic Party and not talking about the realities that Americans are facing," Booker said. "I am tired of all this machination about party politics."
..... Booker's comments on May 24 [2026] echo statements he made back in March [2026] during an appearance on "Meet the Press" while promoting his new book, "Stand."
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At the time, Booker argued that the party needs "generational renewal" if it is to bridge the increasingly partisan divide in the United States.
..... "I'm proud of so many things that my Democratic colleagues are doing, but as a whole, our party has failed this moment," Booker told host Kristen Welker.
..... "It is time for a new vision of our country that's far more uniting, that brings people together, doesn't deepen divides," Booker said. "I really believe this is a time where we need new leadership, new moral imagination, to pull our country together."
..... Booker's more recent comments come days after the DNC released a much-anticipated autopsy detailing what led to the 2024 presidential election loss of former Vice President Kamala Harris to President Donald Trump.
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The 192-page draft document outlines existing conventional wisdom about the contest and leaves blank entire sections, such as the conclusion. But it does assign some blame, in particular to former President Joe Biden's political petitions in the White House for failing, to properly set up Harris as the party's standard bearer.
..... DNC Chair Ken Martin had been criticized by committee members for refusing to resale the postmortem analysis. He stood by that choice of months, saying it would be a distraction ahead of the midterm elections.
.... He eventually relented, though, writing in a may 21 Substack post that withholding the document cerated "an even bigger distraction" while reiterating that it doesn't meet party standards.
..... "I am not proud of this product; it does not meet my standards, and it won't meet your standards," Martin said. "I don't endorse what's in this report, or what's left out of it. I could not in good faith put the DNC's stamp of approval on it. but transparency is paramount."
..... Contributing: Phillip M. Bailey USA Today