Sen. Cory Booker announces he's running for president in 2020

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Sen. Cory Booker announced he's running for president in 2020.

• Democratic Sen. Cory Booker has announced he's running for president in the 2020 election.
• He made the announcement in a video on Friday, which coincided with the first day of Black History Month.
• Booker first made a name for himself as mayor of Newark, New Jersey, and he has served in the US Senate since 2013.
• Booker has been an unapologetic critic of President Donald Trump, and he is poised to continue this along the campaign trail. 

Democratic Sen. Cory Booker has announced he's running for president in the 2020 election.

Booker made the announcement in a video posted on his website on Friday, which coincided with the first day of Black History Month.

He said in the video: "Together, we will channel our common pain back into our common purposes. Together, America, we will rise," he said. "I'm Cory Booker and I'm running for President of the United States of America."

Ahead of the formal announcement, The Hill reported that Booker began calling members of the Congressional Black Caucus - of which he is a member - seeking support.

The senator from New Jersey has been pegged as a top contender for the Democratic nomination. He is the second African American lawmaker to throw their hat into the ring, after Sen. Kamala Harris from California announced her candidacy on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Booker first made a name for himself as mayor of Newark, New Jersey, and he has served in the US Senate since 2013. He's focused heavily on criminal justice reform throughout his time in Congress, gaining a national profile in the process. 

Booker has garnered a reputation for being an earnest, emotional politician. But his critics often label him as inauthentic, and someone who wears his political ambitions on his sleeves. 

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He's long signaled he might run for president, and in early December said he would mull over the subject during the holidays. "I'm gonna sit down and take a lot of stock about what I want to do next - whether I want to run for president or stay in the Senate and help this continued movement in our country to reinvigorate our democracy," Booker said at the time. 

Booker has been an unapologetic critic of President Donald Trump, and he is poised to continue this along the campaign trail. 

If the senator ultimately won the election in 2020, he would not be the first person of color to occupy the White House - former President Barack Obama broke that barrier during the 2008 election. But Booker would be the first direct descendant of slaves to be elected president, which would be monumental in the context of US history.