politico.com
Buttigieg’s midterm blitz is helping him think about his future
CONCORD, New Hampshire— Pete Buttigieg is barnstorming the nation in the final weeks before the midterms, boosting candidates in battlegrounds and even areas traditionally hostile to Democrats. And it’s helping him look beyond November. Down the homestretch, Buttigieg is set to campaign in at least six states: North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, Georgia and Nevada, along with his adopted home state of Michigan, according to an itinerary shared first with Playbook by a spokesperson for Win the Era, his political group. Buttigieg has been refining his campaign trail message as he crisscrosses the country, connecting concrete cost-of-living concerns to the more abstract need for political reform. It’s a kind of real-world testing that helps him further define his political brand at the same time that he leverages it to “be useful,” as he so often puts it, to his party. “I have a lot of conviction that, actually, your economic message only has credibility if you have a reform message, too,” Buttigieg said in an interview after a Rochester Opera House rally where he received a standing ovation. “Because otherwise, what you're doing is you're saying things that people agree with, which is great, but they might not believe that you can actually deliver it.” He’s also building the kinds of relationships with voters and party leaders that can be useful if he runs for president in 2028, a question he was repeatedly asked. (“We’ll see,” he told one woman at the Deerfield Fair.) “For Pete, it's less about getting credit nationally for what he's done for Democrats and more about building relationships in places that will be beneficial down the line,” said David Axelrod, a Buttigieg confidant. Buttigieg’s status as an in-demand surrogate was on full display during his 48-hour swing through the Granite State, where he finished “a very, very, very close second place” to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the 2020 primary, as Buttigieg put it in Saturday evening remarks at the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s Eleanor Roosevelt Dinner in Concord. “I couldn’t ask for a better wingman,” Rep. Chris Pappas said, introducing Buttigieg at the packed rally Friday in Rochester. “People know that he’s a trusted voice,” Stefany Shaheen, who is running for Pappas’ seat, told POLITICO after campaigning at a book store, cafe and candy shop with Buttigieg along Elm Street in Manchester. How Buttigieg is learning from the midterms Buttigieg has neither a battleground governorship nor a personal fortune to wire into midterm races. What he has put on offer is himself: He’s made more than 100 endorsements this cycle, campaigning in person for roughly half of them, and stops in 37 states since he left the Transportation Department. Buttigieg was welcomed in places where candidates shunned some of his potential rivals . He campaigned with Rob Sand and Josh Turek in Iowa as they run for governor and senator, respectively. He backed Brandon Dukes in his special election effort to flip a Pennsylvania state House seat that Trump won by 18 points. He was alone among his peers in endorsing Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin in his victory over longtime Rep. John Larson in Connecticut . “If I can help give voice to what people are after in diverse geographies, including very conservative areas,” he said, “turns out that's my best use of time.” Buttigieg admitted he wasn't certain what role he would play in the party's midterms at the start of President Donald Trump's second term. Now he’s processing all of the data and inputs he’s receiving along his travels. “I’m learning a lot about our country and our party as I go, and what I’m seeing is that people have a real hunger for change,” he told POLITICO. “First of all, in policy. Secondly, in the kind of politics that we have, and third, in the system itself.” That’s developed into a core argument in his speeches connecting the cost of living to political reform: “If we want the kitchen table to be better off, we got to deal with the political system that is kicking the legs out from under the kitchen table,” Buttigieg said at the Rochester Opera House Friday evening. It’s a message that can last long beyond the midterms, and Buttigieg is trying to point his party there. “Part of what I'm really trying to push my party on is the need to have answers for 'then what,'” he said. “There's a big 'then what' for when Donald Trump leaves the political scene, but there's an immediate 'then what' starting on Nov. 4.” A Democratic Congress, he argued, needs “a compelling governing vision coming out of the gate” and should move quickly on tariffs, the minimum wage, tax fairness, health care, the Child Tax Credit and political reforms including gerrymandering. The 2028 question Even as he sidestepped several questions from reporters about his next moves, saying he was focused on 2026, remnants of his 2020 campaign and hints of a future one piled up. People wore "Pete for New Hampshire" buttons and T-shirts. His old playlist, including Creedence Clearwater Revival's “Up Around the Bend,” played at the Friday night rally. At the Roosevelt dinner the next night, in front of a sold-out crowd of over 400, Buttigieg earned a standing ovation that ended in "Pete, Pete, Pete" chants. “Pete had a great New Hampshire organization in 2020, nearly winning,” Ray Buckley, the chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, told POLITICO. “If anything, his popularity here has grown.” Much has changed since then. On Saturday evening, instead of walking out to Panic! At the Disco’s “High Hopes,” his ubiquitous anthem back then, or even Imagine Dragons’ “It’s Time,” which he road-tested last year, Buttigieg employed “You Get What You Give” by the New Radicals. There have been deeper changes, too: Buttigieg is now the father of 5-year-old twins, Gus and Penelope. He is weighing whether he can run for president and remain a good and present father. His husband, Chasten, is a “great dad” and “knows why I'm on the road.” Back on the road, Buttigieg is winning over those who didn’t back him in 2020. At the back of the room in Rochester on Friday night, the town’s Mayor Chuck Grassie wore a "Pete for New Hampshire" button as he took in the scene. Grassie, who backed Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren in 2020 and considers himself a “pragmatic progressive,” said Buttigieg could knit together the party’s moderate and progressive factions. “He’s a guy I think would attract a lot of people,” Grassie said. “And a lot of people I talk to are saying, ‘You know, he's looking better and better every day.’” Added Grassie: “In New Hampshire, I think Pete may be the guy to beat.”
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