Biden, Booker Appear at Urban League Convention: Campaign Update

(Bloomberg) -- The 2020 Democratic field continues its quest to lock down black voter support Thursday and Friday as candidates move from the NAACP convention to the National Urban League gathering in Indianapolis.

Joe Biden and Cory Booker are among those speaking Thursday at the Urban League convention, potentially putting them on a collision course for another round over their records on criminal justice before next week’s Democratic debate in Detroit.

The two men have been sparring this week after Biden on Tuesday released proposals that would roll back measures in the 1994 crime bill – which he authored as the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee – that contributed to longer prison sentences for black convicts.

Booker complained Tuesday that “the proud architect of a failed system is not the right person to fix it.” Biden swung back Wednesday, telling reporters that while Booker was mayor of Newark, New Jersey’s largest city, “his police department was stopping and frisking people, mostly African American men.”

Biden’s campaign followed that with a pre-emptive strike on Booker’s potential debate attacks, offering up some “hard questions” about Booker’s record. “Next week’s debate should focus on how we can fix the system – not on Booker’s specious charges about Biden,” deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said in a statement.

Here’s What Happened on Wednesday:

• President Donald Trump’s re-election effort lost no time in seizing on former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s long-anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill. The Trump Make America Great Committee sent out an email even as Mueller was testifying that called on the president’s supporters to help raise $2 million in 24 hours. It asked for contributions to “send a powerful message to the entire nation that this WITCH HUNT must end.” The email, purportedly signed by the president, asked: “How many times do I have to be exonerated before they stop?”
• Former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, who is mounting a long-shot effort to wrest the 2020 Republican nomination from Trump, said the GOP could soon be seen as “the party of racism.” Speaking at the NAACP convention in Detroit, Weld called on the GOP to reject “the racism of Donald Trump” or risk becoming “universally viewed as the party of racism in America.” Trump has overwhelming support among Republican voters and is likely to coast to renomination. In an average of polls by RealClearPolitics, the president beats Weld by about 72 percentage points.

Coming Up This Week:

• John Delaney, Amy Klobuchar and Tim Ryan, along with Booker and Biden, appear at a forum at the National Urban League Conference in Indianapolis on Thursday.
• Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris appear on Friday.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Washington at jepstein32@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley, John Harney

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