New Jersey Senator Cory Booker told a packed bar in Capitol Hill Tuesday night to prepare for the most “unusual stump speech” on the presidential campaign trail. He joked about binge-watching the comedy TV show Brooklyn Nine-Nine and lying face down on the bathroom floor while being sick. He also said America is living in a “moral moment” and called on civic action over apathy.

Booker spoke for about an hour to supporters who payed between $15 and $250, plus drinks, at Fred Wildlife Refuge. He had just come from another fundraiser on Mercer Island. Donors lined up along Belmont Avenue, where volunteers passed around petitions to get Booker on Washington’s primary ballot next year. The senator’s speech was lighthearted at times and he engaged with the crowd, dubbing one vocal section his “best Amen section ever.” He talked about looking to past accomplishments, like the civil rights movement, to ignite the country’s “moral creativity” and advance the rights of people of color, women, and the LGBTQ community.

Credit: KUOW Photo/Megan Farmer

Christian Shook from Capitol Hill didn’t think she would stay for a selfie with Booker when she arrived, but changed her mind after listening to him. “Rather than holding up tenets that keep us apart,” Shook said in the selfie line, “it’s more a message we need to be together. We need to love one another, we need to care for one another.” Booker’s positivity was brought up by many attendees who said even if he isn’t their number one choice in the field, they admire how he’s run his campaign. His first applause break came when he assured the crowd he wouldn’t be throwing any punches or jabs at his opponents during the night. Christina Humburgs said that style would serve Booker well on a debate stage facing the more politically divisive President Donald Trump. “He can take it from the high road rather than try to do it Trump’s way,” Humburgs said. The two fundraisers come two days before the next Democratic primary debate in Los Angeles. Booker did not qualify for it. Early into the speech he told his donors, “we will rise again in January and be on the debate stage.”