With the help of several elected officials in New Hampshire, including Patricia Klee and Cindy Rosenwald of Nashua, Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker of New Jersey exceeded his self-imposed mandate of raising $1.7 million by Oct. 1 to stay in the race.

Via Twitter on Tuesday, Booker stated: “I want to sincerely thank everyone who supported us in this enormous effort, which will allow us to grow our campaign and puts us in a strong position to compete for the nomination-together, we will rise!”

In mid-September, Booker said that if he did not raise at least $1.7 million by the end of the month, he would exit the still-crowded Democratic presidential field. Klee and Rosenwald quickly joined several other Granite Staters in an effort to keep Booker’s campaign afloat.

“@CoryBooker brings a moral, hopeful voice to the race. He’s the best candidate to unite & heal our country. He can/will beat Trump,” Klee tweeted at the time.

We have nothing against Booker’s candidacy, but we also wonder why New Hampshire Democrats are working to keep so many candidates in the running.

As of this writing, there are still (approximately) 20 active and official Democratic candidates running for president. Despite efforts by the Democratic National Committee to narrow the field by imposing stiff debate qualification requirements for poll numbers and donors, several candidates who are already being left out of debates refuse to quit the race.

As we previously stated in this space, we are not calling for any specific candidates to drop out of the presidential race … at least not yet.

We do, however, have to question why these New Hampshire Democrats worked so hard to rescue Booker’s candidacy.

The most recent poll reflecting the preference of Granite State Democrats, issued by the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, shows Booker with exactly 1% support. This is the same number Booker registered in the same poll, conducted by the same organization, two months ago.

Meanwhile, the average of New Hampshire polls compiled by Chicago-based Real Clear Politics puts Booker at 2.2%. That is lower than the 4% RCP’s average gives Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, a candidate who did not qualify for the September debate in which Booker participated.

Our main point is that there are now only about four months until New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary. If elected Granite State Democrats are so eager to keep someone in the race who is polling so poorly, it seems unfair to average voters who are simply not responding to that candidate’s message.

To her credit, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., ended her presidential campaign when it became clear that voters in New Hampshire, Iowa and South Carolina were not expressing enough support. Others should consider following her lead.

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