Sen. Cory Booker, a former presidential candidate, is engaged

Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), a formerDemocratic presidential candidate whose outspoken opposition to President Donald Trump has drawn national attention, is engaged.

Booker, 56, proposed to his girlfriend, Alexis Lewis, in Hawaii last week during the Senate’s August break, according to Maya Krishna-Rogers, a Booker spokeswoman.

Lewis, 38, works for a real estate investment firm. She and Booker started dating last year after being set up on a blind date by a mutual friend and have been living together in Washington.

“I am savoring the soul-affirming wonder of everyday life with my partner, best friend, and now my fiancée,” Booker wrote in an Instagram post announcing the engagement.

Booker has never married, which sparked questions when he ran for president in 2020.

During an appearance on the radio show “The Breakfast Club” in 2019, host Charlamagne tha God pointed out that Booker would be one of only a handful of unmarried presidents if elected. Booker responded by raising the possibility of a future engagement.

“First of all, there’s two more years until I might fulfill this duty, so give me some time,” Booker said at the time. “My girlfriend might listen to this.”

He repeated the sentiment the following month.

“I hate it that people assume I’d be a bachelor president,” Booker told The Washington Post with a big laugh. “It’s literally 700 days from now. You never know.”

Booker, a former Newark mayor, was elected to the Senate in 2013. He drew national attention this year by speaking for more than 25 hours on the Senate floor in protest of Trump’s policies, breaking the modern record for Senate floor speeches set by Sen. Strom Thurmond in 1957. The speech led to speculation that Booker might run for president again in 2028.

Booker has pressed Democrats to confront Trump more forcefully. He clashed last month on the Senate floor with Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada) over several bipartisan public safety bills. Booker wanted to add language to prevent the Trump administration from politicizing law enforcement grants — which Cortez Masto argued would kill the legislation.

“This, to me, is the problem with Democrats in America right now,” Booker said on the Senate floor. “We’re willing to be complicit to Donald Trump to let this pass through when we have all the leverage right now there is.”