the lookalike campaign
Pete Buttigieg is positioning himself as Joe Biden
Pete Buttigieg is just waiting for Joe Biden to flop.
The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and 2020 presidential candidate would rather focus on health care than impeachment. The Democrat touts his small-town roots and often shares that he's still well in the middle class. And he's unapologetically campaigning with a call to "re-center our politics." It all makes Buttigieg essentially a younger version of the former vice president, and he's just looking for an opportunity to take Biden's front-running place, Bloomberg reports.
With Biden's newfound place in President Trump's Ukraine scandal, that vision may actually come to fruition. Biden's stumbling debate performances and endless gaffe stream have already cost him his top spot in a number of polls, and the uncertainty of his involvement with his son's business dealings in Ukraine could degrade him even further.
Of course, that top polling spot has typically fallen to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and not Buttigieg. That's where Iowa makes the difference. Buttigieg has never really cracked the fourth-place slot in nationwide and early-state polls, but in a recent Iowa poll, he's statistically tied with Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for second. Iowa is also "an overwhelmingly white state kicking off a race in which [Buttigieg] has struggled with non-white voters," making it even more of a boon, Bloomberg writes. The following primaries and caucuses don't look as promising, meaning Buttigieg needs to use Iowa as his time to shine.
Read more about Buttigieg's Biden-esque campaign at Bloomberg.