Pete Buttigieg earned a warm reception in South Carolina on Saturday, returning to the state that put an end to his presidential hopes in 2020 as he debates a 2028 run. The former transportation secretary failed to secure the support of Black Democrats in South Carolina six years ago, forcing him to drop out of the Democratic contest after he came in a distant fourth in the state. He ultimately finished fifth in the Democratic presidential primary in 2020, losing out to former President Joe Biden.
Buttigieg said earlier this month he was "more inclined than not" to make a presidential bid but there was still a lot of uncertainty around the race and his family commitments. But he was greeted with a standing ovation at an NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in South Carolina this weekend, and another at a Black church in the state. "You need to demonstrate that you can win Black voters," Jaime Harrison, a former Democratic National Committee chair and South Carolina Democratic Party chairman, said.
If you can’t win Black voters, you can’t be the nominee of our party," Harrison added. The starting line for competitors vying for the Democratic nomination is likely to be tightly packed, and is thought to include candidates like former Vice President Kamala Harris, California Governor Gavin Newsom and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff is also expected to throw his hat in the ring, along with Buttigieg.
Emerson College polling released earlier this week showed Buttigieg, Ossoff, and Newsom were the strongest candidates among voters when pitted against possible Republican challengers, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance. A separate poll run by the Saint Anselm College Survey Center this month found Buttigieg was leading the field for Democratic nominee with 25 percent, trailed by Ocasio-Cortez at 17 percent. South Carolina will kick off the 2028 presidential primaries on January 22, 2028, before voting takes place in Nevada at the start of February.
New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan and then Virginia will follow throughout February. Biden, while still serving as president in 2024, had supported making South Carolina the first state to vote in the presidential primaries as Democrats hoped to show they were better representing their racially diverse voter base. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) voted to keep the change in place for the 2028 elections last month, with its two co-chairs saying a "rigorous, fair, and efficient calendar" would "win Democrats back the White House in 2028." It was officially approved on August 15.
Moving South Carolina and Nevada into the first two spots has been widely seen as an overture to Black and Latino voters, who will be critical for the Democrats' hopes of reclaiming the White House. Buttigieg declined to outline his potential presidential aspirations to reporters on Saturday, insisting he was instead "totally focused on 2026." But his visit to Reno, Nevada, earlier this month has been interpreted by some watchers as preparation for a presidential bid. "Secretary Pete has definitely put himself on my radar for 2028 now," Davina Perry, a student at Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina, told the on Saturday.
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