DES MOINES — The majority of the Spanish-language links to issues on Pete Buttigieg’s campaign website lead back to English language versions of the actual plans — except for the links to donate and caucus for the candidate, which are translated into Spanish.



“¿Ya estás en #TeamPete?¡Hazlo oficial! COMPROMÉTETE A DESIGNAR A PETE” reads the banner at the bottom of the pages, which remain in English.

Of seven issues with detailed plans listed in the drop-down menu of the site, just one — the Douglass Plan — has a Spanish-language translation under the “ES” (Spanish) version of the site.

The issues not available in Spanish under the “ES” link include climate change, economic agenda for working families, empowering workers, health care, two education plans, and veterans.

Of total 25 detailed plans available in English, just three — “El Pueblo Unido: A New Era for Latinos,” immigration, and the Douglass Plan — are translated in as much detail in Spanish as English. The other plans’ Spanish language translations link lead back to the English language versions.

With four days to go before voting begins in the primaries, Buttigieg press secretary Chris Meagher said, “the simple answer is that we are in the middle of translating the rest of our policy plans into Spanish, but haven't completed that task.”

Shorter versions of other issues — including affordable housing, foreign policy, and gender equity — are available in Spanish. But the Spanish language versions are abridged, most of them less detailed than their counterparts in English.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Spanish-language campaign website includes fully translated plans for 29 out of 70 detailed policies — the rest, like her three most recently released plans, have a short Spanish-language summary and then link to English texts. The Warren campaign has full time staffers working on Spanish language translations of campaign materials, who will translate the remaining plans, the campaign said.

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ site translates 20 out of 33 detailed policies entirely into Spanish, others include summaries in Spanish but stop short of the detailed plans.



Former Vice President Joe Biden’s site also has abridged Spanish-language versions of his policies, lacking more detailed translated plans — but all links in Spanish do lead to Spanish-language pages. The Biden campaign told BuzzFeed News they plan to translate the full plans, but could not say when specifically they would be available.

Campaign staffers of color told the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal recently that they felt disrespected and overlooked by senior campaign officials. Latino staffers told the New York Times they were asked to translate text into Spanish even if they didn’t speak Spanish.

The former South Bend mayor has consistently been among the top four frontrunners in the Democratic primary overall but has never broken single digits in his support from black or Latino voters.

