Can Pete Buttigieg win Alabama's Democratic presidential primary?

Pete Buttigieg is surging in Iowa and New Hampshire where he’s emerged as a viable alternative to Joe Biden, is packing in large crowds, and has enthusiastic young Mayor Pete supporters creating coordinated dance moves during campaign appearances.

The scene was much more subdued in Alabama where the first openly gay man to make a major run for the presidency made stops in Montgomery and Birmingham this week. During his recent Southern trip, Buttigieg gathered before smaller audiences during spirited roundtables where he was peppered with questions about his standing with black voters. Jefferson County Commissioner Sheila Tyson has since told media outlets that she can’t see him winning their support less than three months before the Democratic presidential primary.

“I know he has some supporters … but I don’t think he has strong support and I don’t think as a candidate, he has really clarified his position on issues of greatest concerns to African Americans,” said John Zippert, immediate past president of the Alabama New South Coalition, an organization of black activists formed in 1986.

‘Missteps’

In Alabama, like South Carolina, Buttigieg has a lot of work to do. He’s polling in the single digits in South Carolina where a majority of Democratic voters are black. The South Carolina primary is Feb. 29. In Alabama, where 52 delegates are at stake on March 3, 60% of voters during the 2016 presidential election were non-white.

Read more: https://www.al.com/politics/2019/12/can-pete-buttigieg-win-alabamas-democratic-presidential-primary.html