Cory Booker Fires Up Millennials for Hillary in a California Starbucks

CULVER CITY, California — Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) rallied a small group of millennial supporters of Hillary Clinton in a Starbucks coffee shop Thursday evening, where he urged those in attendance to use the power of new media to encourage friends to vote in California’s primary on Tuesday.

In a well-received 30-minute stump speech, Booker recalled his football days at Stanford and spoke fondly of his political history as the mayor of Newark before predicting a victory for Clinton in California.

He also warned young voters not to be taken in by presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump’s “fear-mongering and demagoguery.”

Describing himself as a “millennial trapped in a Gen X-er’s body,” the 47-year-old senator urged his audience to engage friends on social media to get out and vote on Tuesday.

“More powerful than political ads, speeches and rallies are people’s circles of friends,” he said.

At one point, Booker bemoaned the effect of “too much testosterone” in political discourse: “That’s why we desperately need more women in American politics,” he said to applause.

Booker also warned of the danger of young people sitting out presidential elections, and said the only way to defeat the Republicans in November would be to become active instead of sitting at home in front of a television screen.

“We must be agents of love,” he pleaded.

Earlier Thursday, Booker spoke at an afternoon event for LGBT advocates in Beverly Hills, where he made similar accusations about Trump’s fear-mongering. But few supporters showed up for that event; by comparison, roughly four dozen supporters greeted Booker at the small Culver City Starbucks.

Clinton herself was in San Diego on Thursday, where she repeated a commonly used criticism about Trump’s demeanor.

“It’s not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin,” she said.

Clinton is expected to attend more than two dozen events ahead of Tuesday’s critical California primary. Four polls in a row have shown Clinton and her rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), in a statistical dead heat just days from the June 7 primary.

Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum