Will Cory Booker get bounced from the next 2020 Democratic debate? The question looms.

Charles Stile | NorthJersey

Show Caption Hide Caption Cory Booker: 'I got my PhD on the streets of Newark' Cory Booker talks to the media on Feb. 1, 2019 about Newark's influence on his political aspirations and his decision to run for president.

It's about the closest Cory Booker comes to admitting that his 2020 campaign for president is in trouble.

"We are at a crossroads — are you with us?" Booker's website asks above a set of boxes for donations ranging from $3 to $250 to "Other."

But in a brief interview Wednesday night with NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey, Booker was the voice of full-steam-ahead confidence despite the chronically dismal polling numbers that have dogged him throughout the race and may deny him a spot in the next televised Democratic primary debate on Dec. 19 in Los Angeles.

"Polling numbers have never been predictive of who would go on and be the president from our party,'' Booker said, noting that past Democratic nominees Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, John Kerry and Barack Obama polled poorly at this stage of the race.

Yet the former Newark mayor has been on a sprint of desperation in the past week, publicly urging supporters to step up their donations so that he could boost his chances of raising his low-single-digit numbers with a late-stage media buy before the Dec. 12 deadline to qualify for the debate. In addition to a fundraising threshold, candidates must notch at least 4 percentage points in certain polls, something Booker has yet to do.

On CBS News' "Face the Nation" on Sunday, Booker said the campaign is facing one of those moments when "if you want me in this race, if you want my voice and my message, which is resonating, then I need help."

A super PAC aligned with Booker has stepped up attacks on former Vice President Joe Biden, the resilient front-runner, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, who has surged in polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to hold nominating contests.

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And Booker has also maintained a shrewd balancing act in the wake of U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris' exit from the race on Monday. His public expressions of sympathy over Harris' departure also doubled as an appeal for her voters and donors.

Booker echoed criticisms that an African-American woman and rising Democratic star from California, the nation's most populated state, was unfairly hounded by questions about her "electability,'' namely that she would never attract white, Midwestern voters in crucial battleground states.

"What I’ve heard consistently today and yesterday from African-American leaders, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, civil rights leaders, is that they really feel that this race has not been fair, that the standards that she has been held to were different from the standards of other people,'' Booker said.

Booker also took swipes at the Democratic National Committee's debate criteria, which have now winnowed the field of 20-plus candidates to just six for Dec. 19.

KELLY: It's time for Cory Booker to drop his presidential run. NJ needs him home.

Assuming Booker is excluded — and he remains a long shot with just a week before the deadline to qualify — the debate stage will be without one candidate of color. It would belie the image of the progressive, inclusive party and risk alienating the "Obama coalition" of minorities, women and young voters whose support will be crucial in defeating President Donald Trump next year.

And Booker struck a populist chord, saying that billionaires are now threatening to bump "viable" candidates from the race — a reference to former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, a California hedge fund manager. Steyer has qualified for the next debate. Bloomberg has not.

My dear friend @KamalaHarris is a trailblazer. I've loved serving with her in the Senate and every moment we've run into one another on the trail. Her campaign broke barriers and did it with joy. Love you, sister. pic.twitter.com/HzLXw88NrM — Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) December 3, 2019

"Let's be clear: We're at a point in this race where we have, if you include Donald Trump, more billionaires than black people,'' Booker said. "We as a party have to make sure of electing people with deep connections of the fullness of our electorate. But to create artificial rules that somehow benefit billionaires is problematic."

Yet Booker's likely failure to find a spot on the debate stage at the University of California in Los Angeles could be a major blow. He earned high marks in past debates. Losing that spotlight on the brink of the crucial early-voting states, where momentum often takes root, could be a "death knell,'' said Michael Binder, a University of North Florida political scientist who has conducted a recent poll about the upcoming primary in South Carolina, the third state to hold one.

Other observers are not ready to put what Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray called the "toe tag" on Booker's campaign. For one thing, Biden's "firewall" of support among African-American voters in South Carolina is not as solid as it seems. While black voters make up 60 percent of the Democratic electorate there, about 19 percent remained undecided, Murray said.

If Biden stumbles out of the gate — his debate performances were unimpressive and he has seen his lead in Iowa and New Hampshire slip away — voters there may go scouting for an alternative. Booker's support within the community was a paltry 3 percent, but he enjoys a high favorability rating with South Carolina voters.

In other words, Booker might be summoned from the "second tier" of "farm team" candidates who could find themselves in contention there, Murray said.

The New Jersey senator is also plowing ahead basically with this argument: The polling that could bump him from the debate stage is far removed from the organization and enthusiasm on the ground in Iowa. His ground organization has been widely lauded by political observers and the press.

Booker points to polls in Iowa showing that he also enjoys a favorable image there, and he claims to have amassed the largest collection of endorsements of local officials among the candidates.

"The [debate] metrics used by the DNC, which are all new, to get on a debate stage are not the metrics that align with what wins in Iowa,'' said Booker, who has averaged only 1.7 percent support in the last three Iowa polls, according to RealClearPolitics, which tracks 2020 polls.

The DNC, meanwhile, is requiring candidates to garner at least 4 percent in four early-state or national polls or a minimum of 6 percent in two national polls.

Booker, who was scheduled to begin a four-day Iowa swing on Thursday, cited a post from an influential Iowa political blog urging readers who have not made up their minds to choose Booker if they are called by pollsters. "His argument seems to be, 'Don't let the DNC decide this. Let us decide this.' "

Charlie Stile is New Jersey’s preeminent political columnist. For unlimited access to his unique insights into New Jersey’s political power structure and his powerful watchdog work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: stile@northjersey.com Twitter: @politicalstile