LONDONDERRY, New Hampshire — This is Pete Buttigieg’s moment.
He is riding high on momentum throughout New Hampshire ahead of the Feb. 11 Democratic primary: brushing off new attacks from his rivals, bombarding the airwaves, surging in the polls, and drawing large crowds.
Voters who were unsure of his chances before now look to him after his top-placing finish in the Iowa caucuses and think that the 38-year-old gay veteran and former South Bend, Indiana, mayor could be a plausible Democratic presidential nominee.
“Even though he doesn’t have the support of minorities as much, [he] can probably reach more disaffected Republicans, I’m hoping,” said attorney Andrea Davulis, 37, at a Buttigieg event in Dover, New Hampshire, on Sunday. “I want to be progressive, and I want to be like, Elizabeth Warren — you know? Bernie Bro or whatever. But I think Pete has more electability, and I’m beyond Biden.”
Joe Biden, 77, scrambling after a fourth-place finish in Iowa, unloaded on Buttigieg with a snarky, negative ad on Saturday that compared his mere mayoral experience to that of the former vice president and 36-year Delaware senator.
The attacks did not resonate with many voters giving Buttigieg a closer look.
“Not having all that history in Washington is a better thing than having history in Washington,” said Sara Sokolowski, 30, a nurse in Derry, New Hampshire, who is undecided but leaning toward Buttigieg. She added that his prominence now is more impressive.
Joe Sokolowski, who is 36 and works in defense, agreed. “In a lot of ways, it’s more impressive too,” he said. “It’s a lot harder for someone just being a mayor of a small city to be in the position he’s in today.”
Buttigieg, always ready to deliver succinct and measured talking points, has been preparing for a retort to that kind of attack for his whole campaign.
“I also hear some folks saying, ‘What business does a mayor of South Bend, Indiana, have running for president?'” Buttigieg said at a town hall in Lebanon, New Hampshire, on Saturday. “To which I say, that is very much the point. There are so many communities, rural areas, small towns, industrial cities, and even pockets of our biggest cities who have felt completely left behind by the ways of Washington and who are tired of being reduced to a punchline by Washington politicians.”
Buttigieg’s 13.7% support in the RealClearPolitics average of New Hampshire polls on Feb. 3 shot to 21.3% on Monday, 7.4 percentage points behind poll leader Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Biden dipped from second place with 17.5% on Feb. 3 to fourth place at 11%, tied with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
The spike in the polls was reflected in increased attention and enthusiasm from many Buttigieg supporters who had not attended a single other candidate’s event this cycle.
When doors opened for attendees in Salem, New Hampshire, some attendees started running to secure a good spot near the stage where Buttigieg spoke.
An event with veterans at an American Legion post in Merrimack, New Hampshire, on Thursday was so full that dozens of members of the press and attendees were turned away at the door. In the spin room after the Democratic presidential debate on Friday, a mob of press surrounded Buttigieg as he moved from one television interview to another, at one point knocking over a case of camera equipment with a bang that made security officers in the room perk up for a minute.
Actor Michael J. Fox stumped for him on Saturday, and on Sunday, Buttigieg appeared on every single Sunday political show. He held four packed town halls in towns on Sunday that, according to the campaign, drew record crowds for the campaign cycle in those towns: 1,800 in Nashua, 1,100 in Dover, 1,250 in Salem, and 900 in Londonderry.
“I think he would represent the United States very well to the world, even though he doesn’t have the experience. But then, what did Trump have?” said Dover teacher Pam Lutz, 58, an undecided voter.
Account manager Lisa Panteli of Salem, who decided to vote for Buttigieg after seeing his CNN town hall last week, said that it is the former vice president rather than Buttigieg who lacks “professionalism.”
“Most experience, perhaps, but even when he was there, he was that kind of jokester,” Panteli said, referencing strange faces that Biden made during one of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union addresses.
