Buttigieg Executed His Strategy But He Still Isn’t Winning

  • Polls flatlining, fund-raising slowing before Super Tuesday
  • His Iowa victory was overshadowed by caucus vote bungle

Pete Buttigieg in Exeter, New Hampshire.

Photographer: Kate Flock/Bloomberg
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Pete Buttigieg executed his strategy almost perfectly. He won in Iowa and finished in a closer-than-expected second place in New Hampshire.

But, those early successes have failed to catapult him, as his campaign long argued, to becoming a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. Instead, he’s barely budged in national polls, voters of color have not turned in large numbers to his candidacy and a surge of fund-raising never materialized.