Dawson first connected with New Jersey Senator Cory Booker during a fundraiser for a mutual friend, Ben Jealous, in the summer of 2018. Nothing came of their first encounter, but the two crossed paths again in October 2018, which is when sparks flew. “I mean, gosh, that night we talked for hours and hours,” Booker explained to The Washington Post. “I had trouble asking for her phone number. I think I said something really stupid like, ‘Uh, how would I get in touch with you?’ And she mercifully said something like, ‘Oh, you want my phone number?’ And my insides were like, ‘Hell, yeah!'” The two were spotted out together in early 2019 but kept their relationship under the radar until Dawson confirmed their status in March 2019, per People.
Over the course of their romance, Dawson publicly supported Booker as a candidate in the 2020 election and often shared sweet posts about her beau on social media. In May 2020, Dawson moved from Los Angeles to Newark, NJ, to live with Booker and told People about the transition, “It was an amazing adventure. My family are all in New York. It felt really beautiful and good to start a new chapter of my life in the driver’s seat.”
By February 2022, however, People reported that Dawson and Booker had split.