For a 37-year-old mayor of a small city in Indiana, Pete Buttigieg’s candidacy is lifting off with startling speed, suddenly omnipresent on Twitter and Facebook but also on cable-news channels where Buttigieg’s smarts and charisma have made him an unlikely media star. The Buttigieg boomlet appears to be having an effect: while the South Bend mayor remains virtually unknown nationally, his profile is rising quickly in key early-voting states. Incredibly, the most recent Emerson University poll in Iowa, released Monday, puts Buttigieg in third place in the Democratic primary field with 11 percent.

Buttigieg, a candidate with a grab bag of admirable qualities for a Democrat—youthful, Midwestern, military vet, Harvard grad—still lags behind frontrunners Joe Biden (25 percent) and Bernie Sanders (24 percent). But now he’s nosing out Kamala Harris (10 percent), Elizabeth Warren (9 percent), and O’Rourke (5 percent). That’s an impressive jump, considering when Emerson last spoke to Iowa voters in January, Buttigieg was polling at 0 percent. “We’ve seen growing interest,” Iowa state party chairman Troy Price told NBC News on Sunday. “Iowa caucus-goers and Iowa Democrats are interested in what he has to say and want to hear more.”

Notably, Buttigieg’s appeal straddles a few unusual categories. While 18-to-29-year-old voters are overwhelmingly pro-Sanders, with 44 percent gunning for the Democratic socialist, Buttigieg comes in second, with 22 percent. He also attracted a significant portion of Iowa voters who voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic caucuses (tying with Warren at 15 percent), as well as 8 percent of those who voted for Sanders that year. “If Buttigieg is able to maintain his momentum, his candidacy appears to be pulling from the same demographic of young voters as Sanders, and that could become a problem for Sanders,” suggested Spencer Kimball, the director of the Emerson poll.

It remains too early to tell whether Buttigieg can maintain this momentum going into the debate season. But he certainly appears to have cross-categorical appeal. Buttigieg speaks the language of the heartland and the identity-politics progressives, while balancing centrist sensibilities (keeping some aspect of private insurance, for instance) with Twitter-friendly galaxy-brain policy proposals (like packing the Supreme Court). If he can stay on the radar of an easily distracted media without any obvious gaffes, the Buttigieg boomlet may have staying power.

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