Pete Buttgieg via Gage Skidmore.
Pete Buttigieg has dropped out of the 2020 presidential race after a poor showing in South Carolina. NBC News. Buttgieg came in 4th place in South Carolina but critically only gained 2% of the black vote, a critical indicator of a successful Democratic presidential candidate. Buttigieg did extremely well in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire just barely winning Iowa and essentially tying in New Hampshire but after that his momentum faded as he finished in 3rd in Nevada and 4th in South Carolina. Buttigieg tried to portray himself as a more moderate candidate and did well in the debates but has now dropped out after securing 26 delegates.
My Comment:
I'm not 100% sure of the timing of this. Buttigieg was still a contender and though I don't know how well he would have done on Super Tuesday, I don't think it would have cost him much to stick through it. He probably wouldn't have won any states based on the polling I have seen but polling isn't always right. If he blew it on Tuesday, sure, then drop out, but why before?
My guess is that he both knows he can't win and he wants to help defeat Bernie Sanders. Buttigieg's supporters were mostly older whites, a constituency that is deeply skeptical of socialism and the Sanders platform. Buttigieg's voters will most likely go to Joe Biden, who is the best suited candidate to take down Sanders after his big win in South Carolina. By dropping out now he might help Biden win in states that might have gone to Sanders instead, or, at the very least, help Biden capture more delegates than he would have otherwise.
So why did Buttigieg's campaign fail after doing so well in the first two races? My guess is that he had next to zero appeal with minorities. He only got 2% of the black vote in South Carolina which is a very bad sign for a candidate who needs blacks to potentially win in 2020. He did well in the mostly white states but once he got to the more diverse Nevada and South Carolina, he was done.
Why didn't minorities like Buttigieg? Part of it might be because he is gay. Most White Democrats are fine with gay people but Hispanics and especially blacks do not like the LGBT wing of the Democratic Party. Though white people might be ready for a gay president, minorities appear not to be.
This is strange to me because Buttigieg played off his homosexuality as being completely normal and did not flaunt it in anyway. Indeed, if it wasn't for the fact that after the debates he was greeted by a husband instead of a wife you wouldn't know he was gay. He almost seems like a conservative's favorite gay man as he is in a devoted relationship, doesn't flaunt his sexuality to the point where it's not an issue and even served honorably in the military. I wouldn't have a problem voting for him if it wasn't for that whole Democrat thing. But I guess that didn't help him with minorities.
Buttigieg being gay probably wasn't the only reason he didn't do well among blacks. His opponents successfully painted him as a racist for his time as mayor of South Bend. The city did have some racial problems but the rest of the candidates made it sound like Buttigieg was a Klan member who was ordering his cops to mow down black people. It was pretty ridiculous but fairly standard in a party that views all interactions with police as unavoidably racist. This alone might not have killed him with minorities but the combination of that and his homosexuality probably did him in.
More generally Buttigieg had other problems as well. His last name is both hard to spell/pronounce and ridiculous. And it's more than a little unfortunate for a gay man. Though nobody should judge someone just on their name I think people did judge Buttigieg for his and it may have hurt him slightly.
Worst of all though, Buttigieg had little in the way of name recognition. Before he ran for President he was a nobody with basically no national name recognition. Most people didn't know who he was or what he stood for and even his city, South Bend, is fairly obscure.
Finally, I also never really knew what Buttigieg stood for. His main selling point seemed to be that he was the adult in the room, but other than that he didn't say much on policy. He tried to play himself off as being more moderate but he didn't really have a signature issue like the other candidates do (socialism for Sanders and Warren, status quo ante for Biden, UBI for Yang and so on). Though he was a good speaker and debater he just kind of seemed like an empty suit to me when it came to policy.
That being said, I don't think this is the last we will hear from Pete Buttigieg. He's a very young 38 and has a bright future ahead of him in a party that probably doesn't. With most of the party being geriatric at best, there is an argument to be made that younger voices like Buttigieg should have a say of where the party goes. And he's in a great position to do so.
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