Pete Buttigieg's polls, fundraising and media coverage explain his impressive but limited rise.



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Pete Buttigieg.

Pete Buttigieg.

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo of Ethan Miller / Getty Images.

Things are much better for Pete Buttigieg than he would have really hoped for. This month, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, promised promising poll results, flattering coverage and a stellar fundraiser. He spent the first days of his campaign teaching journalists how to pronounce his name; he spent the last few years getting profiled by the Daily show and appearing on Meet the press. This is a remarkable progression for the 37-year-old, who has been officiating at the end of January with an Exploratory Committee, but who will not officially run for president until this weekend. end.

The latest round of good news for Buttigieg came this week in the form of two new national surveys, one from HarrisX and one from Morning Consult, which placed it firmly in second place, far behind Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, still in office. On the statistical front, but in the midst of half a dozen reputable contenders who find themselves behind the two favorites. The national average of RealClearPolitics begins to tell a similar story. Last month, Mayor Pete had a moment; this month he seems to have a real chance.

Nevertheless, a bucket of cold context is in order. Buttigieg is perhaps the "Democratic candidate of the moment" or the "most popular candidate of the country", to use the words of some reports this week, but only in light of expectations. According to most real-world statistics, it behaves about as well as Cory Booker or Amy Klobuchar, both more endorsed, almost as much money and about the same number of polls as Buttigieg, but not having received the same kind of response. cover that he has recently. Kirsten Gillibrand may be willing to trade places with Buttigieg for the moment, but I do not think Elizabeth Warren or Beto O'Rourke would do it, even though the former is struggling to raise funds and that the last one enjoys critical coverage to just stay stable after entering the country. race with a record bang.

Here is a simplified timeline of Buttigieg's ascent to the middle level: he began campaigning in January, began to get noticed with real debate about wrapping the Supreme Court in February, received rave reviews for his performance at CNN City Hall the following month and then in April, with a fundraising report of $ 7 million, which finally placed him below of Sanders ($ 18.2 million), Kamala Harris ($ 12 million) and O & # Rourke ($ 9.4 million), and above Booker ($ 5.2 million) and Klobuchar ( $ 5.1 million) on the unofficial ranking of the first quarter. Nobody saw that coming.

Along the way, her potential to write history as the first openly gay candidate of a large party aroused much excitement, as well as a conversation about how her sexuality intersected his lived experience as a white man. There were also some nice stories about his nervousness that proved that we had some of the potential of Twitter, a narrative that overshadowed the reality that his reputation as a great thinker still has to translate into politics – unlike some other The junior candidate who also has Harvard on her resume. Meanwhile, the traditional biography of Buttigieg – Rhodes researcher, McKinsey consultant, Navy officer – has won him fans among the set up.

After this impressive start, Buttigieg continues to progress. He was mentioned 216 times in total on Fox News, MSNBC and CNN between March 31 and April 6, according to FiveThirtyEight, which counted the cable mentions of running candidates (that is, not Biden). Sanders (551) and O'Rourke (300) were the only ones to talk about it. After Buttigieg on the list: Harris (198), Tim Ryan (165), Warren (163) and Julian Castro (69). The frequency with which Ryan was mentioned is telling: with 24 hours to fill a day, talking heads are desperate for something, no matter what, a new one to talk about.

It's not a hard blow for the media to look beyond the usual suspects. This is how things are supposed to work, in a general way. The political press is throwing a wider net, allowing more candidates to speak to voters, who then decide whether these candidates are worth more attention. Polls and fundraising are imperfect measures, but they are the best media available when the first nominations continue in 10 months. In a Democratic primary that has so far been lacking in surprises, Mayor Pete is a clear exception. And given lingering concerns about Biden's behavior towards women, it seems the time is particularly opportune for moderate Democrats to consider their options.

Despite all Buttigieg's online buzz, it's important to remember that Twitter is not the real world. It remains largely unknown IRL. It currently stands at 2.9% of the national average of RealClearPolitics, which makes it seventh. If 2.9% does not seem like a lot, well, it's because it's not. Buttigieg's support was within the margin of error in five of the seven polls in this average, including the new HarrisX, released Monday night. (A sixth poll, the Harvard-Harris poll, did not calculate the margin of error). The only exception is the Morning Consult survey, released Tuesday morning, which revealed that Buttigieg was at 5% nationwide, up from 1% a month ago.

Given the static state of voting in the (very) early days of elementary school, the subtle Buttigieg bump is important – elections by definition are popularity contests – but it masks the reality that 1 Democrat out of 2 interviewed by Morning Consult has not heard from him and about 2 out of 3 have no opinion about him. His national profile is really on the rise, but he still has a long way to go before he finds himself in the same stage as Warren, O'Rourke or Harris, not to mention Biden and Sanders, who are currently enjoying almost universal name. For now, therefore, Buttigieg's position is largely a matter of perspective: his current position seems remarkable given his starting point, but it's also a long way he has to finish.

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