Oprah Winfrey is slated to host a fundraiser on Thursday to aid Newark Mayor Cory Booker's run for New Jersey's Senate seat.
The 200-person fundraising event for Booker will take place at The Liberty House Restaurant in Jersey City, N.J., with tickets ranging from $1,000 to $2,600,
ABC News reports.
Booker has appeared on Winfrey's show, and in 2011 she wrote in
Time Magazine that "Cory Booker is a genius" who "defines servant leader."
"I believe Cory, 41, could have been elected senator, but he chose the harder and arguably more important job of running New Jersey's biggest and often most challenging city," she wrote when he was selected as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world.
Booker had $4.5 million in the bank for his campaign at the end of June and raised $4.6 million over the past three months.
New Jersey's Senate seat became vacant when Frank Lautenberg died in June. The Democratic primary is scheduled for Aug. 13, and Booker currently holds a substantial lead in
Monmouth University's poll released July 16 with 49 percent of the vote, while opponent Rep. Frank Pallone has 12 percent, Rep. Rush Holt has 8 percent, and state Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver has 3 percent.