04:45

That was a canny not-quite-victory speech from Pete Buttigieg, drawing a battleline with Bernie Sanders - and repositioning his candidacy for the contests ahead.

Jonathan Freedland (@Freedland) Chants of “President Pete” pic.twitter.com/xmvv6tZTb7

When he said it made no sense to risk another four years of Donald Trump for the sake of “ideological purity” and that “We must get this right”, he was directly targeting those Democrats who might like Sanders’ positions, but fear he would lose to the current president.



More striking was the former South Bend mayor’s attempt to pivot to the blocs of voters he must now win over if he is to progress. Mindful that he has been polling at close to zero among people of colour, he peppered his speech with nods to the concerns of the voters who will determine the outcome of the next two rounds of voting, in Nevada and South Carolina.

There was a line of Spanish aimed at the Latinx voters who will be decisive in the first-in-the-west contest in a state Buttigieg said represented “the future”, and several attempts to reflect the concerns of African-Americans - a huge part of the electorate in South Carolina - as he denounced voter suppression and racial bias in the health, education and criminal justice systems. There was also an allusion to the Black Lives Matter movement as he spoke of the “young man who fears for his safety in the lights of a police vehicle.”

Missing from the speech was even a coded attack on his immediate opponent: Amy Klobuchar, third placed in New Hampshire and now battling him for dominance in the so-called moderate lane of this contest. That duel will come soon enough.