WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Cory Booker’s presidential bid just got a new lease on life as he has raised the money he said he needed to adequately fund his campaign.

Booker had announced Sept. 21 that he needed to raise $1.7 million by the end of the month to have the resources needed to compete against his better-funded and better-known rivals. He brought in almost $1.8 million with a day to spare, the campaign announced Monday morning.

“Thanks to this outpouring of support, we see a viable path forward to continue growing a winning campaign," Booker said. “I’m staying in this race — and I’m in it to win.”

But he still faces a long, hard slog to the nomination.

His last-minute fundraising surge doesn’t change the fact that Booker continues to trail his rivals in both money and support.

“I think it is literally only a matter of time,” said Gov. Phil Murphy, who last week delivered a pep talk via conference call to the Booker campaign and helped raise money as the candidate sought to reach his goal. “As folks drop out, as Cory continues to stay at it, when space is created, either by others who stumble or others who pull out, Cory, I think, is as poised as anybody to fill that space.”

Booker had raised $12.5 million through June 30, with $2.7 million of that coming from his U.S. Senate account. That was far behind not only the candidates leading in the polls, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, but also Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke and Amy Klobuchar.

Despite strong grassroots operations in the early primary and caucus states, enthusiastic responses when he appeared with his opponents, strong debate performances, and endorsements from prominent local officials, he remains far behind in opinion polls.

He didn’t even crack 1 percent in the Quinnipiac University survey released Sept. 25. He needs to reach 3 percent in four qualifying polls to make the stage for the fifth presidential debate in November. So far, he has met that threshold in two of them.

Booker’s surge though, allowed him reach the other requirement of 165,000 individual donors.

While Booker has continued to maintain that it was too early for the polls to be a factor, history was not on his side. Two of the Democrats polling in September 2007 as low where Booker was — Biden with 3 percent and Chris Dodd with 1 percent — never got past the Iowa caucuses. And a third, Bill Richardson, who had 2 percent, dropped out after New Hampshire.

On the conference call, Murphy, who was the Democratic National Committee’s finance chairman at the time, said he reminded Booker staffers that Hillary Clinton led Barack Obama by 30 points in the fall before the primaries began.

“There’s enough time on the clock and I think it’s just a matter of time,” Murphy said. “Maybe it’s just that Cory needs that extra touch, that extra visit, before you really get the deep sense and conviction of this guy. He is as equipped as anybody to pick up the space that’s vacated by anybody who stumbles or drops.”

Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

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