WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA – South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a potential candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, visited West Hollywood Thursday evening and expressed optimism about his chances for victory.

"The path is narrow, but I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't see a path," Buttigieg told Fox11 at what his staff called a "meet and greet" at Bar Lubitsch. "What we found is, if we get in front of people, they respond." The approximately two-hour event came four days after Buttigieg appeared on a CNN town hall at South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, drawing praise from a variety of sources in politics and entertainment.

"I have rarely seen a candidate make better use of televised Town Hall than @PeteButtigieg is on @CNN tonight," David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaigns, tweeted on Sunday. "Crisp, thoughtful and relatable. He'll be a little less of a long shot tomorrow." Emmy-winning actor Bradley Whitford tweeted, "Every time out, @PeteButtigieg crushes it. Every. Time."

Original "Star Trek" cast member George Takei, who unsuccessfully sought a seat on the Los Angeles City Council in 1973, described Buttigieg in a tweet as "a fresh voice whose star is rising fast." Buttigieg also had a series of private meetings planned during his second visit to Southern California since his Jan. 23 announcement that he has formed an exploratory committee to study a possible presidential campaign, according to his communications adviser Lis Smith.

The 37-year-old Buttigieg is seeking to get contributions from 65,000 people, including at least 200 per state in 20 states, to meet a threshold set by the Democratic National Committee to qualify for debates planned for June and July. He reported Wednesday that he had contributions from more than 55,000 people.

Buttigieg has not officially announced his candidacy because "he is not a household name, like many of the Democrats looking at the 2020 race, so he's testing the waters in the truest sense of the term," Smith told City News Service.

"He's exploring how his message of generational change is resonating, as well as his ability to build a national campaign," Smith said. "All the signs have been very promising since he announced his exploratory committee." Buttigieg was elected in 2011 when he was 29 and re-elected in 2015 as mayor of South Bend, which has a population of about 102,000 and is best known as the home of Notre Dame University.