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Pete Buttigieg had a plan for February. It didn't work out as he hoped.
Pete Buttigieg had a plan heading into February: Turn a strong performance in Iowa into enough momentum to compete in New Hampshire, notch a strong showing in Nevada and survive South Carolina.
By winning the most delegates in Iowa and placing within a few percentage points behind Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire, the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor successfully implemented the first two steps of that plan. But he also placed a distant third in Nevada and got trounced in South Carolina, finishes that highlighted the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor's persistent issues with voters of color.
And on Sunday, Buttigieg is slated to end his presidential campaign, according to multiple campaign aides, ending an unlikely campaign that vaulted the once-unknown mayor to a top presidential contender.
The decision to exit the race is a reflection that Buttigieg's path toward the nomination was far narrower headed into March than just one month ago. That reality forced the candidate on Sunday to confront the real possibility that, without a significant change in the state of the race, his campaign would have to end.
Buttigieg conferred with advisers on Saturday night about his path forward. But he also told supporters in Raleigh, North Carolina, that he is "proud of the votes we have earned, and I am determined to earn every vote on the road ahead."
The mayor then spoke with aides again on Sunday and opted to end his run.
His uncertain path ahead was even clear earlier in the day when he met with Jimmy Carter in Plains, Georgia, on Sunday. After the former president lauded Buttigieg, he remarked: "He doesn't know what he's going to do after South Carolina."
The problems for Buttigieg were particularly acute after South Carolina. The former mayor had long dealt with pressure from the left and Sanders, but former Vice President Joe Biden's rise also put pressure on him from the party's center, where scores of the donors that had long backed Buttigieg were eying Biden as a more viable option.
The challenges for Buttigieg's strategy rest on three unexpected realities: A severely delayed result out of Iowa, Sen. Amy Klobuchar's boost in New Hampshire and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's more forceful presence in the race ahead of the Nevada caucuses.
"There's still a lot of oxygen being sucked up in the race," said Mike Schmuhl, Buttigieg's campaign manager, said before the former mayor got out. "When you stack all those people (running) up, there's not a lot of space or not a lot of wiggle room for any campaign to operate. And so, we're kind of in a crunch right now between South Carolina and Super Tuesday."
Buttigieg aides argued for months that the former mayor, by showing he could win in Iowa, would be able to convince skeptical voters across the country that he was a safe bet and his poll numbers in South Carolina and nationally would begin to surge in the back half of the month. Many aides likened it to what happened to Barack Obama in 2008, where a win in Iowa catapulted him to not only electoral success, but a surge of money.
That didn't happen. Buttigieg finished far behind Biden in South Carolina, national polls have found him hovering in the high single digits for months and his campaign is lowering expectations heading into Super Tuesday.
"The path has tightened and is tightening for everyone,"a top Buttigieg aide said before the former mayor decided to end ended his bid. "That is definitively true, but don't think that is unique to our campaign."
The aide continued: Buttigieg "knows where we are. He has been aware of this for a long time."
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Posted by Erin Burnett to Trang Ánh Nam at March 1, 2020 at 6:03 PM
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