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.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
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.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.
-
Border agents crash Newsom redistricting kickoff
Speed Read Armed federal Border Patrol agents amassed outside the venue where the California governor and other Democratic leaders were gathered
-
Man charged for hoagie attack as DC fights takeover
Speed Read The Trump administration filed felony charges against a man who threw a Subway sandwich at a federal agent
-
Trump BLS nominee floats ending key jobs report
Speed Read On Fox News, E.J. Antoni suggested scrapping the closely watched monthly jobs report
-
Trump picks conservative BLS critic to lead BLS
speed read He has nominated the Heritage Foundation's E.J. Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics
-
Trump takes over DC police, deploys National Guard
Speed Read The president blames the takeover on rising crime, though official figures contradict this concern
-
Trump sends FBI to patrol DC, despite falling crime
Speed Read Washington, D.C., 'has become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world,' Trump said
-
Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monuments
Speed Read The administration has plans to 'restore Confederate names and symbols' discarded in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder
-
Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seat
speed read Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers and a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell, has been nominated to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors