A racially charged tweet directed at Cory Booker, the Democratic frontrunner in the New Jersey Senate race, was quickly deleted from the campaign account of Republican candidate Steve Lonegan on Monday.
Politico posted a screengrab of the Tweet, which said, “#breaking just leaked – Cory Booker’s foreign policy debate prep notes” and included a picture of a map of Newark covered with annotations describing various locations as West Africa, Guyana, Portugal, Brazil, Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Trinidad.
The tweet was sent from the @LoneganForNJ campaign account during a Democratic Senate debate. Prior to the debate, Lonegan posted on his personal @Lonegan account encouraging readers to watch the campaign account for debate updates from his staff. Lonegan’s advisor, Rick Shaftan, told Politico the tweet was removed at Lonegan’s request.
“Steve didn’t find it funny or reflective of the way he thinks and asked that it be taken down immediately. And, as you know, it was,” Shaftan said.
