Talk about your inverted yield curve. Or maybe the better borrowed financial-world term is poor return on investment. Either way: Pete Buttigieg continues to rake in the campaign contributions, with his $32 million raised through June trailing only Bernie Sanders ($46.4 million) and Elizabeth Warren ($35.7 million). Yet Buttigieg’s poll numbers badly lag those two rivals, as well as those of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, with the most credible national surveys showing Mayor Pete drawing support in the middle single digits. And a sizable portion of that depressing math can be traced to one, possibly crippling, weakness.
“The energy for Pete is still strong. He’s still raising a bunch of money. He’s still the intellectual liberal’s candidate right now. And he is the candidate of the Democratic donor class,” says Rufus Gifford, who was a top fund-raiser for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns and who has maxed out his donations to five Democratic contenders, including Buttigieg, this time around. “He can speak to the progressive, as well as the business community, in meaningful ways. So I still think he’s right there in contention. Whether or not he can actually put together a coalition to win—I think that’s still a long shot. If you are polling at zero or low single digits in South Carolina with black voters, you just can’t pull it off, unless there’s somehow a 10-way split. And even then, that’s not a strong position to be in.”
When it comes to attracting black voters, who make up 61% of the Democratic electorate in the crucial early primary state, Buttigieg shares a few hurdles with many of his competitors: Unlike Biden, they haven’t been on the political scene for decades, and they weren’t Obama’s vice president for eight years; unlike Harris and Cory Booker, they’re white. Warren, for all her momentum, is also grappling with a large disparity in racial support. But Buttigieg has an extra difficulty: It appears most South Carolina voters don’t know much about him, and what they do know they don’t seem to like. As mayor of South Bend, Buttigieg bungled the removal of the city’s black police chief just before a local protest of Trayvon Martin’s killing in Florida.
“Mayor Buttigieg might be as close as anyone in this field to having the charisma, the magic, that a presidential candidate needs,” says Cornell Belcher, a pollster on both of Obama’s successful White House runs. “But he’s flawed because of the police situation in South Bend. To a lot of African Americans, it’s damn near disqualifying, because it’s a front and center issue that’s on the minds of a lot of African American voters and Hispanic voters. And if you can’t keep that situation under control in that pissant town, why on earth are we gonna put you in the presidency?”
Buttigieg is also gay and married. Attitudes are shifting with the generations in South Carolina, but for many older, churchgoing black voters, Buttigieg’s sexual orientation goes against their religious beliefs. “The personal stuff is a distraction,” says Antjuan Seawright, a South Carolina Democratic political strategist and a CBS News contributor. “It presents a challenge. But the Chinese symbol for crisis is the same one for opportunity. He can share his story, and talk about how the things he will fight for will impact communities regardless of who he chooses to love. For him, it’s really about just talking about the issues of the day.”
Buttigieg’s campaign knows it has a significant problem. It will soon be hiring a “director of black engagement” to help boost his efforts, and not just in South Carolina. In the meantime, Buttigieg is trying to defuse the cultural issues by sticking with policy and personality, and by talking to as many black audiences as possible—the National Urban League, the National Association of Black Journalists, Desus & Mero. “A lot of folks are still learning who he is,” says Chris Meagher, Buttigieg’s national press secretary. “He hasn’t been involved in national politics for decades.... When they do hear him speak about the urgency of this moment, when it comes to climate change and gun violence and the cost of education, they see and understand that Pete is a break from the past, and someone who will focus on real solutions to the problems that we’re facing.” To that end, Buttigieg was back in South Carolina for campaign events last weekend, and drew warm applause from parishioners when he was introduced during Sunday morning services at the Bethel AME Church in Georgetown. The methodical approach is showing some slightly positive results: Among black voters, Buttigieg went from 0% in May to 6% in June, then back to 2% last week, according to a South Carolina Post and Courier poll.
Buttigieg’s fund-raising prowess should buy him plenty of ground troops and advertising, which could start to move his poll numbers even more. Yet the real test of his obstacles with black voters won’t come until next February. “One of the most striking pieces of data from 2007 was that there wasn’t a poll you could take in any primary state, or even nationally, that suggested anything other than voters thought Barack Obama was too inexperienced to be president. And it was a dispositive liability,” says Jonathan Prince, who was a top strategist for John Edwards in 2008. “Except Obama won Iowa, and then that completely disappeared! There was no experience issue. You can’t poll future state of mind. Pete’s current appeal across demographics isn’t as broad as he’d like it to be. But if he performs in Iowa and New Hampshire, he’s totally viable in South Carolina.”
— The Trump-baiting Anthony Scaramucci interview that roiled the president
— Who is Ghislaine Maxwell? Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged enabler, explained
— Trump’s bizarre handwritten notes to Justin Trudeau
— The private-jet controversy plaguing the British royal family
— The real-life events that may have inspired Succession
— From the Archive: Another whodunit in the Hamptons
Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hive newsletter and never miss a story.
