MANCHESTER, N.H. — Like many other Democrats, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker has criticized the shutdown-ending deal that eight members of his caucus struck this week with Republicans.
But when the topic came up during a town hall Friday, Booker warned against intra-party bickering and leaned on a football analogy to drive his point.
“I’m not happy about it,” he said of the shutdown deal, arguing Democrats should have stuck to their fight to extend expanded health care subsidies as part of the spending package. “I think we lost yardage … but that play is over.”
Booker, 56, who was a tight end on Stanford University’s football team, told the town hall audience he learned some of his best life lessons on the field. One of those came, he said, from seeing how easy it was to exploit the weakness of competitors who distract themselves by demeaning their own teammates who made a mistake.
Booker said the shutdown deal — which New Hampshire senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan helped to broker, sparking backlash from close allies, including Shaheen’s daughter — was a misstep. But he argued Democrats should refocus on their fight to protect health care, food assistance, and other priorities from Republican cuts.
“We have work to do,” he said. “Get in the huddle. Get ready for the next play.”
In some ways, Booker’s comments on the shutdown deal sounded similar to his broader message about Democratic electoral politics at a time when the party is regrouping in the wake of a bruising defeat in last year’s presidential race.
In fact, Democrats hosted the town hall with Booker as part of a strategy to defend New Hampshire’s coveted position at the front of the 2028 presidential nominating calendar, after then-President Joe Biden and the Democratic National Committee snubbed the state’s traditional first-in-the-nation 2024 primary.
Three of the state’s DNC delegation members — Donna Soucy, Joanne Dowdell, and William H. Shaheen, who is married to Senator Shaheen — helped to organize the town hall and sat together in the front row Friday, citing the event as a prime example of the state’s political tradition in action.
“New Hampshire citizens pride themselves on getting involved, speaking to leaders face to face from town halls to living rooms across the state,” Dowdell said in a statement. “Cory Booker has a strong following here so we are thrilled to have him back.”
The event, held at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, was the third in a series of town halls this year with potential 2028 presidential candidates. The first two featured Representative Ro Khanna of California in August and Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut earlier this week.
New Hampshire has also seen recent visits by other Democrats who could be eyeing the next presidential race, including governors JB Pritzker of Illinois and Andy Beshear of Kentucky and US senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Ruben Gallego of Arizona.
When asked on Friday about his own 2028 ambitions, Booker demurred, as potential candidates often do, shifting to focus instead on nearer races, including the state’s 2026 contests for US House, Senate, and governor.
“No matter what,” he said, “I will be back in New Hampshire, I’m sure.”
Booker reiterated his longstanding support for New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary, in which he campaigned in the 2020 cycle, though he dropped out of the running less than a month before New Hampshire voters cast their votes that February.
“I’ve gone across this country and campaigned in a lot of states, but you all have created a very special tradition here that really is about connecting to people individually,” he said. “I want that tradition to continue.”
Booker, who has garnered a reputation in New Hampshire as an engaging speaker, elicited laughs, applause, and teary eyes from town hall attendees before he headed to Nashua to deliver a keynote address at the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s Eleanor Roosevelt Dinner, a major fund-raiser.
But his notoriety for moving rhetoric hasn’t translated to strong polling numbers in New Hampshire.
In October 2019, near the height of his 2020 campaign, Booker was the preferred candidate for about 2 percent of likely Democratic primary voters, according to the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. Six years later, another UNH poll showed Booker still standing at about 2 percent, trailing well behind several other potential 2028 contenders.
Steven Porter can be reached at steven.porter@globe.com. Follow him @reporterporter.