Cory Booker wins Special Election for U.S. Senate becoming the first African American elected from New Jersey

Cory Booker wins NJ Special Election for Senate
New Jersey becomes 3rd state to elect an African American to the Senate and first African American to be elected to the U.S. Senate since Barack Obama was elected Senator from Illinois in 2004

Associated Press

NEWARK- Newark Mayor Cory Booker won a special election Wednesday to represent New Jersey in the U.S. Senate, giving the rising Democratic star a bigger political stage after a race against conservative Steve Lonegan, a former small-town mayor.

With three-quarters of precincts reporting, Booker had almost 56 percent of the vote to Lonegan’s 43 percent. The first reaction from the social-media savvy victor came, of course, on Twitter: “Thank you so much, New Jersey, I’m proud to be your Senator-elect.”

Booker, 44, will become the first black senator from New Jersey and heads to Washington with an unusual political resume. He was raised in suburban Harington Park as the son of two of the first black IBM executives, and graduated from Stanford and law school at Yale with a stint in between as a Rhodes Scholar before moving to one of Newark’s toughest neighborhoods with the intent of doing good.

Booker gave a speech later to supporters in Newark and spoke as he often does of the unity of the American people.

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African Americans in the U.S. Senate

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