OTTUMWA, Iowa — No presidential campaign is spared its awkward moments: overlong hugs from supporters, groaners about the Iowa weather, white lies about the caliber of the local cuisine.

But Pete Buttigieg — who came to Iowa a year ago suggesting it might help that he was “not a household name” and is now a top contender in state polls — projects something different. He is perhaps the only candidate who can look as if he is weaponizing awkwardness as a conscious choice.

He smiles with effort in photographs, like something borrowed from middle school picture day, and informed an Iowa crowd this week that he has “not had the pleasure” of attending an N.B.A. game. He recites the New Hampshire creed of “live free or die” with a hokey addendum: “It doesn’t have to come down to that.” He recently gave a thumbs-up to a baby.

And when the time comes for prewritten audience questions, pulled from a fishbowl and read aloud, Mr. Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Ind., surveys the room for their authors and vamps — a mélange of scanning and squinting built into an otherwise tightly choreographed program:

“The lights are rather bright. Oh, there you are. I can see your hand. Alright.”

“Again, just give a holler, Jackie, if you’re — okay. I see you. O.K. …