How Pete Buttigieg broke through the crowded pack

It turns out Pete Buttigieg understood things about the mood of 2020 and the workings of the Iowa caucuses that far more seasoned presidential candidates did not.

And ironically, perhaps, the 38-year-old former South Bend mayor has risen to a leading position in the Democratic presidential nomination process by adapting ideas from former Vice President Joe Biden’s playbook.

During his unsuccessful presidential campaign more than three decades ago, Biden relentlessly emphasized the urgency of generational change. He never got a chance to play out his 1987 strategy because plagiarism charges ended his candidacy prematurely. But Buttigieg is demonstrating that Biden was onto something. He’s capitalizing on his distance from Washington and the hopes inspired by “a new generation focused on the future.”

The votes from the shambolic Iowa caucuses are still being tallied, but it’s clear Buttigieg achieved the breakthrough he had hoped for.

Buttigieg always understood the improbability of his quest. But he never doubted there was a path for him as he made clear in an interview in January 2019, before he formally entered the race.

For example, he correctly saw that a younger candidate could have special appeal to older voters.

What some might claim are political obstacles — notably his path-breaking identity as the first married gay veteran to seek the presidency — can also be assets.

“There are three gates,” he said. “The first is profile: You’re interesting because you’re a gay millennial mayor, or because you’re a woman of color in the Senate, or whatever it is, and that gets somebody to write a story about you, that gets people to think you’re kind of interesting ... Step two is message: As the ideas begin to come forward, which ones are really compelling? ... And then the third one, which almost comes full circle, is the messenger . ... Which individual is presenting that message in a compelling way?”

So far, it’s worked, and Buttigieg commanded two spaces along the spectrum of candidates.

Biden’s problem: He won less than a quarter of these voters, with Buttigieg matching or slightly exceeding his share of the Beat Trump majority.

And Buttigieg staked out a philosophical space just to the left of Biden. He thus ran even with Biden among self-described moderates, but well ahead of him (and everyone else) with the largest group of caucus-goers, those who called themselves “somewhat liberal.” This may prove to be the Democrats’ ideological sweet spot going forward.

And where Sanders won overwhelmingly among voters under 30 and Biden swept those over 65, Buttigieg’s voters were relatively well distributed across the generations (as were Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s). Buttigieg’s strongest group: voters between the ages of 45 and 64.

Finally, Buttigieg targeted rural counties that enjoy a slight overrepresentation in the delegate count. This painted a large swath of the Iowa map in Buttigieg’s colors and gave him an edge in the delegate battle.

Buttigieg has a long way to go, but his hopes rest in part on recent political history. “Two Democratic presidents have been elected in my lifetime,” he said in the 2019 interview, referring to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Before they broke through to public attention, “among their qualities they had in common are youth and relative obscurity.” Buttigieg still enjoys the first. The second is now in his past.