South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has had a surprisingly strong launch to his campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination considering he’s a small town government official who came into the race virtually unknown, and is surrounded by high-profile rivals who have spent years building national reputations. Is he on the cusp of a national boom?
The 37-year old Buttigieg has been generating a ton of interest on social media and according to Google, he’s surged to being the most searched candidate, behind only the front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden. What’s particularly remarkable is that this jump in interest has continued even after the entrance into the race of former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who many people assumed would draw attention away from Buttigieg given he’s been treated as another young rising star within the party. Buttigieg’s campaign has also announced that he raised $7 million, a haul that will help to hire staff and get the message out.
So far, in terms of polling, the Buttigieg boomlet has been most detectable in Iowa. In an Emerson poll released last week, Buttigieg surged to third place, at 11% — trailing only Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders. In the same poll in early February, he didn’t even register — i.e., he was literally at 0%.
Typically, early state polls are a leading indicator of national polls, because if a candidate can do well there, they can attract more attention and be seen as more “viable,” helping lead to more support nationally.
Thus far, in terms of national polls, Buttigieg has gone from not registering at all, to barely registering. He’s currently averaging 2.3 points in polls compiled by RealClearPolitics, and has never polled higher than 4% nationally. But the combination of money, interest, and the traction he’s gaining in Iowa would suggest that this number will pick up in the coming weeks.
What’s interesting is that in an era in which many liberals are out for blood, and other Democratic candidates are seemingly competing to demonstrate which of them is prepared to rip the other side’s face off, Buttigieg’s message is one of trying to be more civil and understanding. Recently, he received some blowback from Hillary Clinton 2016 veterans for making a fairly fair assessment of the election: “Donald Trump got elected because, in his twisted way, he pointed out the huge troubles in our economy and our democracy,” Buttigieg told the Washington Post. “At least he didn’t go around saying that America was already great, like Hillary did.”
His message harkens back a bit to the one offered by Barack Obama in 2008, who ran on liberal policies and sprinkled blistering criticism of the Bush administration with more conciliatory statements about learning to “disagree without being disagreeable.” Buttigieg seems to be betting that there’s still a market for that sentiment, in an age in which many other candidates want to show they can be just as vicious and unapologetic as Trump.
