DES MOINES, Iowa — Pete Buttigieg is backpedaling his prediction the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination contest will come down to a battle between himself and Elizabeth Warren.
“I don’t remember the exact context,” the South Bend, Indiana, mayor told reporters in Iowa on Saturday evening, adding he didn’t think his remarks “came out right.”
Buttigieg’s earlier critique of the Democratic field had seemed to inflate his own chances against Warren, a Massachusetts senator, ignoring rivals such as former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“Look, the bottom line is this is a really strong competition among really strong campaigns,” Buttigieg, 37, said Saturday.
One of the criticism of Buttigieg’s two-person race comment was that he was playing pundit.
Asked whether he plays pundit too much in response to process questions, Buttigieg said he was an “analytical guy” who sometimes “steps outside myself.” https://t.co/fLWb2rGT4W
— Dan Merica (@merica) November 2, 2019
Buttigieg, the prior day, told Showtime’s The Circus that he sees the Democratic primary fight winnowing to “a two-way” between himself and Warren.
“It’s early to say,” he said in a clip teased on Friday. “I’m not saying that it is a two-way. … A world where we’re getting somewhere is that world where it’s coming down to the two of us.”
Queue up “Just the Two of Us,” @PeteButtigieg thinks this race is between him and @ewarren.
See the full interview on a new episode of @SHO_TheCircus this Sunday at 8pm on @showtime. pic.twitter.com/FZV0PMTWWq
— John Heilemann (@jheil) November 1, 2019
David Axelrod, President Barack Obama’s chief campaign strategist who has offered advice to Buttigieg in the past, described the mayor’s interview as “unhelpful.”
“The campaign strategist’s nightmare: When the candidate goes all pundit in an interview,” Axelrod tweeted on Saturday afternoon.
In response to Axelrod’s comments, Buttigieg acknowledged on Saturday en route to Decorah, Iowa, for a town hall that he was an “analytical guy” who sometimes “steps outside myself.”
Warren downplayed Buttigieg’s prophecy on Friday, saying in Des Moines before the Iowa Democratic Party’s Liberty and Justice Celebration she was “just out here talking about why I’m running for president.”
Some of their rivals, however, didn’t care to be as diplomatic of Warren and Buttigieg’s status given polling suggests they are struggling to excite minority Democrats.
“The Democrat Party in 2020 cannot afford to nominate somebody that can’t appeal to the African American community and the Latino community,” Julián Castro, an Obama administration housing secretary, said in Des Moines on the sidelines of the Des Moines NAACP’s Economic Freedom Presidential Town Hall. “If that person can’t connect with those communities, they simply should not be at the top of the ticket. It’s too risky. You’re playing into the Republicans hands. You’re giving Donald Trump the same playbook that he won with in 2016.”
Buttigieg ranks fourth in RealClearPolitics’ polling average, earning 7.1% of the vote nationwide. He trails former Biden (27.6%), Warren (20.4%), and Sanders (17%). Yet, he catches up to the front-runners when it comes to fundraising. During the third quarter he hauled in $19.1 million, behind Sanders’s $25.3 million and Warren’s $24.6 million but ahead of Biden $15.3 million.
