WASHINGTON – Four years before Pete Buttigieg launched his bid to become the first person to leap from a mayor’s office to the White House, he was invited to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

At a “smart cities ”forum, Buttigieg helped launch a new initiative to spur innovative solutions to local problems.

He’d long envisioned South Bend, Indiana, as a “beta city” the perfect size to use his data-driven background with the consulting firm McKinsey to test big ideas.

“The dream is to actually have a real-life version of Sim City at my fingertips,” he told Fortune magazine after the White House launch of the MetroLab Network in 2015.

As Buttigieg increasingly draws distinctions between himself and the frontrunners for the Democratic nomination – as he did during a feisty appearance at last week's debate – he told USA TODAY his approach in Indiana reflects arguments he’s making for why his presidential message is better.

Former Vice President Joe Biden launched his campaign promising that “America’s coming back like we used to be. ” Buttigieg counters that “we’ve got to find a new future.”

"I don't agree that there's any such thing as back to normal," Buttigieg said during the debate.

But despite his start-up mentality, Buttigieg is not selling himself as the biggest disruptor.

Buttigieg surge:Mayor in striking distance in Iowa with Biden, Warren - Suffolk/USA TODAY poll

The test-it-out approach he took in South Bend, he said, demonstrates why boldness has to be combined with pragmatism instead of pugilism on issues like Medicare for all, where he is split from his more liberal counterparts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

“I’m not afraid to stand, or even fight for, what I believe in,” Buttigieg told USA TODAY. “But when you hear the word 'fight’ so many times, it starts sounding like fighting is the point. That’s where I think we’re at risk of losing our way.”

Big hurdle

In Iowa, the South Bend mayor, initially seen as a long-shot presidential contender, has seen a jump in his poll numbers following the latest debate. A Suffolk University/USA TODAY Poll put Buttigieg at 13% among likely Iowa caucus-goers – within striking distance of Biden, who was at 18% and Warren at 17%.

Still, Buttigieg faces a big hurdle convincing people that he can go from being in charge of a city of about 100,000 to leader of the most powerful country in the world – something that’s never been done.

“It would be epically stunning,” said Mark Jones of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research. "Just as Donald Trump's election was epically stunning as well."

Buttigieg is the first presidential candidate to boast of having the “smartest sewers in the world,” an innovation he's become known for but not a topic usually associated with the commander in chief.

And South Bend still has plenty of problems – including higher-than-average poverty rates, lower-than-average median income, racial disparities and an increase in violent crimes – that Buttigieg acknowledges haven’t been solved.

Asked at the first Democratic debate why his police department was disproportionately white, he candidly responded: “Because I couldn’t get it done.”

But Buttigieg has stood out among his peers, even though when he took office in 2012, he was the nation’s youngest mayor of a city South Bend’s size or larger.

At the White House launch of MetroLab, South Bend was dwarfed in size by the much larger participating communities – Chicago, Dallas and New York City.

He’s outlasted New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio in the presidential race and been endorsed by dozens of mayors from across the country who called him their role model.

Officials from private entities which chose South Bend – because of Buttigieg – as a place to pilot new initiatives, said he created a culture of innovation and was a “wonderful talent attractor.”

Mark Muro, policy director of the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, said the 37-year-old mayor has not only been “at the forefront of younger, more data-oriented, tech-oriented mayors,” but is also noteworthy for how he connects the technical to the human element and conveys big ideas.

“The hybrid skills that he offers of a big story about where the nation is and needs to go based on real world problem solving is very appealing at a narrative level,” Muro said. “And narrative is really important for becoming president and being one.”

A city in decline

The heart of Buttigieg’s narrative is South Bend, the fourth-largest city in Indiana nestled just below the Michigan state line. It used to be bigger. With an economy historically shaped by the makers of cars and metal products, the city lost a quarter of its population in the 1970s and 1980s as manufacturing declined.

When Buttigieg launched his presidential campaign in April, he did it from a former Studebaker factory. Shuttered in the 1960s, the six-story vehicle assembly plant that redevelopers call a monolithic shadow of the past is being turned into what could be the largest mixed-use technology campus in the Midwest.

Buttigieg says the plant illustrates how progress isn’t made by using resentment and nostalgia to sell an impossible promise of returning to a bygone era, but by working toward “something totally different.”

“You could argue that the entire industrial Midwest is in some ways like the Studebaker plant,” Buttigieg told USA TODAY when asked if there’s a national equivalent. “Huge untapped potential. A lot of legacy costs. A lot of things we gotta fix. But a chance to take what we’ve always had and find new value in it.”

Tapping new potential

In South Bend, there was still plenty of value in the University of Notre Dame, with its vast financial and intellectual resources.

But for years, the school had been insulated from the city, said Notre Dame graduate Andrew Wiand.

Wiand was among those who tried to change that through a startup, enFocus, aimed at getting smart young people to stick around and help solve problems.

Buttigieg’s early embrace of the idea was critical in getting enFocus off the ground, Wiand said.

“What his mantra was, was 'South Bend doesn’t suck,’” Wiand said. “I know that sounds basic. But we talk about the permission to believe in ourselves as the first piece of actually doing something.”

Buttigieg also hired recent graduate Santiago Garces, first through enFocus and then directly as the city’s first chief innovation officer – a post unusual for a city of South Bend’s size.

Garces, who is now director of innovation and performance for the city of Pittsburgh, found working with Buttigieg exciting but demanding.

“I think he sees governing as a kind of moral activity that requires going back to what is good and bad and trying to reframe the decisions in terms of what is good for society,” Garces said. “As an engineer, sometimes you’re like, `Oh my god man! Would you just tell me what you want!’ But, in the end, you end up betting a better result.”

And those results led to national, and international, attention.

Photos:This is what South Bend looks like after Mayor Pete Buttigieg's time in office

Standing out

The advanced sensor technology that guides South Bend’s wastewater flow, helping save the city an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars, became the core of the company now selling the product to cities all over the world.

The partnership with Notre Dame on the sewer technology and other issues contributed to the White House launch of the MetroLab Network.

In 2018, South Bend beat out more than 300 other cities for a Bloomberg Mayor’s challenge grant to expand a ride share service the city piloted.

Garces, who helped figure out how to optimize the fire department fleet and launch a new community paramedicine program to reduce calls by frequent users, was invited to join an elite group of chief data officers of cities that the Harvard Kennedy School brought together to collaborate on new ways of transforming local governments.

“There were a set of cities that either brought themselves to our attention or we saw what they were doing,” said Stephen Goldsmith, director of the school’s Innovations in American Government Program.

“Among those, South Bend stood out.”

The Drucker Institute likewise found South Bend a great place to pilot initiatives both because of its size and its mayor.

“The wellspring of innovation can be found in places that are not going well. And Pete recognized that,” said Lawrence Greenspun, director of public sector engagement for Drucker.

More than a dozen cities have since used a management training program for public employees created with South Bend’s collaboration and Drucker is now piloting a lifelong learning initiative there with seed funding from Walmart and Google.

The goal is to give every resident easy access to the education or training programs that they need in a fast-changing economy.

Test it out

Buttigieg said the willingness he showed in South Bend to try something new – but to test it out first – helps explains why he doesn’t back as big a transformation in health care as the government-run Medicare for all approach favored by Warren and Sanders. Under what he calls his “Medicare for all who want it” plan, people would have the choice of joining a government health program or staying with an employer-sponsored or individual private insurance coverage.

“We’re talking about the biggest innovation in U.S. health care since the innovation of Medicare itself,” he said. “But also, I’m not assuming that it’s going to work for everyone right away. Which is why I think it’s so important not to force people onto it.”

Likewise, some of his other proposals – such as his plans to address racial inequities, boost rural communities, combat climate change and improve mental health services – include efforts to unlock what’s happening at the local level.

During the debate, Warren countered that Medicare for All is the “gold standard,” arguing that Buttigieg’s plan wouldn’t make health care affordable for everyone.

Biden disputed that he’s used the words “back to normal” and said one of the reasons he’s running is because of his age and experience.

“With it comes wisdom,” he said.

Paullina Mills, a substitute teacher in Iowa who attended a Buttigieg town hall in Ames the day after the debate, said she’s not concerned about Buttigieg’s limited experience in higher office. Mills, who said she decided just a week ago that she would caucus for Buttigieg, added that the mayor’s experience as a Navy intelligence officer is also important context.

“Experience is always a good thing, but it’s not necessarily a deal breaker,” she said. “Obviously it’s not a necessity to be an experienced politician to be elected president, if Donald Trump can do it. So I think he has the necessary experience, and then some.”

Although some mayors whose endorsements are highly prized haven’t yet picked a candidate, they have plenty of compliments for Buttigieg.

“He’s very highly regarded among his peers, very much considered a thought leader…and an action leader,” said Steve Benjamin, the mayor of Columbia, S.C., and the immediate past president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors where Buttigieg launched in 2018 an effort to help cities deal with the effects of increased workforce automation.

When Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti created in 2017 a national initiative to scale and replicate local solutions to economic insecurity, he had his pick of mayors wanting to be part of “Accelerator for America.” Garcetti chose Buttigieg as one of the founding board members and choose South Bend as the launching pad. Through the program, South Bend has created a template for taking advantage of new federal opportunity zones meant to spur investment in lower-income areas.

Garcetti isn’t ready to back a candidate. But the mayor of a city 40 times the size of South Bend said he doesn’t have a problem envisioning Buttigieg making the giant leap to the White House

“Whenever people have thought the stage is bigger, perhaps, than he could be on, or should be on,” Garcetti said, “he’s always been able to show them he absolutely is ready.”

Contributing: Barbara Rodriguez of the Des Moines Register.