Days after Senator Cory Booker supported girlfriend Rosario Dawson at the premiere of her new movie, she returned the favor by heading to Ohio to see him take the stage in the fourth Democratic debate. The actress, 40, surprised the debate audience at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, when she was spotted heading to the second row of the hall to watch her boyfriend spar with the other 2020 Democratic contenders. Dawson, sitting between Booker’s New Hampshire director and Senator Kamala Harris‘ husband, Doug Emhoff, looked beautiful, of course. She wore a brown, ruffled midi dress, gold hoop earrings, and brown leather boots for the event, and slipped on a pair of glasses when the debate began.
The couple went public with their relationship in March, though romance rumors started swirling in December 2018. They made their first public appearance together in June, when the New Jersey senator sat down for an interview with RuPaul. Booker and Dawson have become more comfortable with a public relationship since. Booker attended the premiere of Dawson’s documentary, The Need to Grow, on October 9 in New York City, and flew to Los Angeles the next day for the premiere of Zombieland: Double Tap. They went full PDA on that red carpet, smiling and hugging in front of the cameras, and just straight up making out, too.
After the October 15 Democratic debate ended, Dawson joined Booker on the red carpet (yes, the debate had a red carpet) as they headed into the spin room backstage for post-debate analysis with CNN. She looked incredibly proud of her love, gazing at him adoringly as he answered questions from the press, and smiling at the cameras as they walked hand-in-hand. See the cute photos of the couple below.
Booker and Dawson teased their relationship for months before finally confirming it. Booker said in an interview on The Breakfast Club in February that he was seeing “someone special,” and shortly afterward, Dawson revealed that it was her when TMZ caught her at the airport in Washington, DC. She was wearing a Booker 2020 pin, so it was kind of obvious. And they both said that they were in love! He revealed during a CNN town hall in South Carolina in March that he met Dawson at a fundraiser for former NAACP leader Ben Jealous. He said that she “didn’t give me the time of day,” but he eventually worked up the courage to ask her for her phone number the next time he saw her.
