From the Associated Press:
Newark (NJ) Mayor Cory Booker won a special election last
night 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.
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.
He's been an unconventional politician, a vegetarian with a
Twitter following of 1.4 million - or five times the population of the city he
governs. With dwindling state funding, he has used private fundraising, including a $100 million pledge
from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, to run programs in Newark, a strategy
that has brought his city resources and him both fame and criticism.
Booker was elected to complete the 15 months remaining on
the term of Frank Lautenberg, whose death in June at age 89 gave rise to an
unusual and abbreviated campaign. If he wants to keep the seat for a full
six-year term - and all indications are that he does - Booker will be on the
ballot again in November 2014.