Inside Booker’s complicated relationship with pharma

In case you missed it, the 2020 campaign season is in full swing. And with that, so is pharma bashing. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) both formally announced their candidacies this weekend and both have already taken some shots at pharma. But I want to focus on another candidate, one who has a much more complicated relationship with the drug industry. My colleague Lev Facher has a fascinating look at the lengths Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) has gone to in order to convince voters he's ready to take on drug companies.

Here’s the rub: On paper, Booker looks as hard on pharma as liberal lions like Warren and Klobuchar. But as Lev writes, his actual platform isn't the issue — it's whether voters will see his stances on drug pricing as sincere and whether he can shake off pro-pharma votes he made earlier in his career that have tarnished his liberal reputation ever since.

I was so taken with Lev’s reporting that I did some digging of my own, surveying a cadre of lobbyists to ask them who they think are both the best and the worse Democratic candidates for the drug industry. Unfortunately for Booker, his was among the names floated by lobbyists as potentially the best case scenario for drug makers. Looks like he might have some more work to do on that stump speech … Read more.