Two weeks out from the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses, Pete Buttigieg is at risk of being overshadowed by another former mayor running in the Democratic race for the White House.
Michael Bloomberg isn’t contesting the four early voting states, instead prioritizing the 14 “Super Tuesday” contests while blanketing the country with his “get it done” ads. But his late push for the presidency presents Democrats with another option if they’re looking for a candidate with executive experience outside of Washington who could potentially appeal to more centrist voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and other battleground states.
“Bloomberg and Buttigieg have both been mayors and face the same challenge breaking the historical pattern in which former mayors fail to do well in the presidential election process,” Barry Burden, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Election Center, told the Washington Examiner in an email. “As the base of the Democratic Party has become younger, more diverse, and more urban, it is possible that mayors will become more important figures in the party’s leadership.”
Buttigieg, 38, was mocked by some Democratic rivals for being a “college town mayor” as he solidified his place among the top four contenders for the 2020 nomination. Yet the former two-term South Bend, Indiana, mayor’s pitch of being able to bring his Midwestern sensibility to the White House has resonated, at least in Iowa and New Hampshire — even if South Bend is a reliably blue city, thanks to its proximity to the University of Notre Dame, with a population of about 100,000.
“This is how we can fix things that are broken: with a mayor’s eye view. And a mayor’s readiness to fight when we must fight, but a mayor’s awareness that we can never get so caught up in fighting that fighting is all we got,” he told the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington on Thursday.
Although Republican strategist Alex Conant pointed out the ascendancy of Bloomberg, 77, mostly hurts former Vice President Joe Biden, the three-term mayor of New York City, the country’s largest metropolis, also pokes holes in many of Buttigieg’s arguments for his candidacy other than the need for generational change.
In comparison to Buttigieg’s three years at McKinsey and Company after graduating from Harvard College and Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar, Bloomberg has amassed a fortune of approximately $60 billion as an investment banker turned financial market and news information services entrepreneur. While Buttigieg unsuccessfully vied to become Democratic National Committee chair in 2017, Bloomberg led New York City’s recovery efforts after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. And though Buttigieg, an Afghanistan War veteran, could be the first openly gay president, Bloomberg could be the first Jewish commander in chief.
One of the main cases for Bloomberg hinges on this premise: As a former Republican and independent, Bloomberg could help broaden the Democratic electorate by speaking to voters disenchanted with both parties, rebuilding the so-called “Blue Wall” in the process. A CNN poll released this week showed Bloomberg trouncing President Trump by 9 percentage points if the general election were held today, matching former Vice President Joe Biden’s margin of victory despite Biden being more popular. Similar trends were evident in two Michigan polls conducted this month by EPIC-MRA and Detroit News/WDIV-TV.
The philanthropist may alienate more liberal members of the base with his Wall Street pedigree and could struggle to woo undecided voters with his apparent discomfort for the grip-and-grin aspect of retail politics. Yet his work fighting for gun control measures and climate change action through his foundation, as well as his promise to donate his 1,000-person campaign infrastructure to support the party in defeating Trump in the fall, may win over other Democratic critics.
“If I become president, I can just promise you the doors to the White House will be open to mayors because the policies that the president designs are often implemented not at the state level but at a local level, and you will have a seat at the table in ways that has never happened before,” he said this week at the mayoral confab. “I want your ideas. I want your feedback on what’s happening on the ground, and I want you to have the authority and resources to drive change.”
Should Bloomberg upstage Buttigieg, backers of ousted White House hopeful Cory Booker, 50, may view it as Buttigieg supporters’ comeuppance. The New Jersey senator, former mayor of Newark, and Rhodes scholar couldn’t gain traction in the primary regardless of the similarities between his and Buttigieg’s resumes.
“When I was mayor of the largest city in my state, and this is where I agree with Mayor Pete: Mayoral experience is very important. And I happen to be the other Rhodes scholar mayor on this stage,” Booker quipped during the November debate in Atlanta.
