Cory Booker finalizing Iowa leadership team of high-profile Iowa staffers in preparation for possible 2020 run

Cory Booker is finalizing the leadership of a potential Iowa campaign team — an indication the New Jersey senator is moving closer to announcing a run for president.

According to a source familiar with the process, Booker will hire, should he run, a team of high-profile Iowa staffers that includes Mike Frosolone, Haley Hager, Joe O'Hern and Tess Seger.

• Frosolone directed the Iowa House Democrats’ political operation, leading the recruitment of 95 Democratic candidates to run in the House’s 100 districts — the most in 30 years.
• Hager was the Iowa state director for NextGen America, the organization funded and created by billionaire activist Tom Steyer. She has a background in organizing and field work.
• O’Hern's resume includes work for the Iowa Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign in 2014 and as Martin O’Malley’s caucus director in the 2016 cycle.
• Seger has been the communications director for the Iowa Democratic Party for the last year and a half.

Booker's national campaign manager would be Addisu Demissie, who also has Iowa ties. Demissie was in the state for two caucus cycles, working as a Polk County organizer for John Kerry in 2004 and as a deputy field director for Hillary Clinton in 2008.

Booker has long been expected to enter the 2020 presidential race, and on Twitter last week told his followers, "I will let you know soon" about a decision.

Booker last was in Iowa before the 2018 midterm election. In October, he headlined the Iowa Democratic Party's fall gala, delivering a galvanizing speech to Iowa Democrats the day Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as the nation's newest Supreme Court justice.

“This is not a time to curl up. It is not a time to shut up. It is not a time to give up. It is a time to get up, to rise up, to speak up!” he told them. “It is time for you not to wait for hope, but to be the hope.”

The news of his potential Iowa team comes as 2020 campaigns compete in an arms race for staffers.

► 50 Most Wanted: These are the Iowa Democrats who will help shape the 2020 caucuses

With more than two-dozen potential candidates eyeing a White House run, campaigns are aggressively courting top-tier Iowa talent out of a concern they'll quickly be scooped up by competitors.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who announced her exploratory Committee Dec. 31, also has hired a team of high-profile Iowa staffers.

Some who have yet to formalize an exploratory committee have brought Iowa staffers into positions with their leadership PACs. Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown's America Works PAC has tapped Iowa staffer Margaret Jarosz to plan his upcoming trip through the state.

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