Senator Cory Booker began his presidential campaign by pitching himself to American voters as a hugger and healer in a time of extreme national political divisiveness. He hoped to go through the presidential primaries without attacking any of his fellow candidates, and contrast himself with Donald Trump in the 2020 election as a lover versus a hater. But his dream to run a love-filled campaign was short-lived, as he changed his “love over winning” concept into “win above all else” soon after it became clear that he was lagging majorly behind the leading candidates. Now his campaign manager says his entire campaign is close to going belly-up.

In a memo sent out to campaign staffers, Booker’s campaign chairman, Addisu Demissie, wrote that the campaign must raise $1.7 million in donations before September 30^th to remain viable. Demissie wrote that without a strong uptick in campaign donors “we do not see a legitimate long-term path forward.”

Although Booker’s ground game in Iowa, the first primary state, is strong and has received praise from election watchers, his national polling number have hovered at 2-3% for months, making it difficult to get enough people donating to his campaign to keep it afloat past the first primaries.

If Booker does indeed drop out of the race, it is likely that other candidates also lagging in polling and fundraising number will follow shortly thereafter. From the way the race is shaping out to be, it seems that the final four candidates for the Democratic nomination will be Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg.