The Long Shot Candidate

Abhinav Dholepat
3 min readOct 16, 2019

Can Pete Buttigieg Become The Democratic Nominee?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/22/south-bend-mayor-presidential-candidate-2020

On the 14th of April 2019, Pete Buttigieg launched his campaign for the presidency of the United States. Since then his national profile has risen considerably. Among other things, he has appeared on the cover of Out Magazine, Politico, and the coveted Time Magazine. More Importantly though, he has been consistently risen in the polls for the Democratic Nomination for the presidency. Can he, however, secure the nomination of the democratic party?

Lets first consider his chances at the nomination. Mayor Pete is currently polling at around 6% nationally. This effectively places him at ‘fourth place’ in the race for the nomination. When one looks at the polls for the Iowa primary he polls at 14%, which is still ‘fourth place’. This however, must not be discounted. With the number of candidates reducing in each debate and only eight nominees (of the twenty who started) qualifying for the 5th democratic debate (to be held on November 20th), being in fourth place is a comfortable position to be in for Mayor Pete. Being in the middle of the order, allows him to attack the front runner to gain a political edge but keeps in a position small enough not to be attacked back. This helped Former President Obama during his nomination for the presidency in 2008, as he was able to come from behind and attack the then front runner, Hillary…

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