Buttigieg Is Confident He Can Coax African American Voters. Here's His Reasoning.

Beth Baumann | February 16, 2020 11:45 AM

It's no secret that former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg has struggled to gain popularity amongst African American voters. He's even having issues with the queer community. Between his surge in Iowa and New Hampshire and former Vice President Joe Biden's dip with African American voters, Buttigieg feels confident that he can win over the skeptics as the Democrats move into more diverse states, like Nevada and South Carolina.

"You have the most delegates after the first two contests. They were overwhelmingly white states. The race is about to get more diverse and a new Quinnipiac poll shows former Vice President Joe Biden’s support among black voters has fallen more than 20 points, but Mayor Bloomberg, his support among black voters has tripled to 22 percent. You, on the other hand, are at four percent. Why aren’t the voters coming to you?" CNN's Dana Bash asked.

According to Buttigieg, he's not focused on polling numbers, but is instead worrying about talking to voters and "earning their vote." He believes he can win the African American voter demographic because people are "taking a different and new look at the candidates."

"Now that we have demonstrated that we have been able to gain support in states like Iowa and New Hampshire, as we are coming to more racially diverse states like here in Nevada and South Carolina, many of the voters of color that I am talking to are focused in particular on one thing: defeating Donald Trump," Buttigieg explained. "Look, nobody is experiencing the pain of living under this administration than voters of color. Talking to a lot of the highly pragmatic voters who want to know more than anything else that you can put together the organization and the message that will decisively defeat this president. So much on the line and we have to get this right."