GREENVILLE, S.C. — Just hours before the South Carolina primary, Pete Buttigieg is still introducing himself.

Facing trouble breaking in with black voters, who comprise 60 percent of the South Carolina Democratic electorate, Buttigieg has leaned on intimate events to make some inroads. And on Thursday afternoon, Buttigieg shook hands and greeted each of the nine African American health care leaders gathered by his campaign for an invitation-only roundtable in Greenville.


But with the primary looming, Buttigieg is still barely registering in polls of black voters in the state, and he’s at serious risk of finishing outside the top three on Saturday.

Buttigieg’s final swing through South Carolina featured both small, invitation-only conversations with black leaders as well as thousand-person rallies with largely white crowds. As Sidney Echevarria walked into Buttigieg’s rally in Rock Hill, S.C., a few hours later, she had one thought: “Are there any more of us here?” wondered Echevarria, who is black.

“It’s hard to run against Joe Biden,” continued Echevarria, who drove down from North Carolina to see the mayor and plans to vote for Buttigieg on Super Tuesday.

Miles away, Biden smiled for selfies with a clutch of black South Carolina voters at a barbecue joint in Hemingway, while Bernie Sanders rallied a thousand supporters in Columbia. It’s a stark split-screen contrast between Buttigieg and the top-polling candidates in South Carolina, where Buttigieg has struggled to broaden his appeal since finishing in the top two in Iowa and New Hampshire, the heavily white states that vote first and second in the Democratic nominating process.


At the time, Buttigieg said his victories in those states would inject momentum for him among voters of color, but that hasn’t happened.

“If two days before the primary, you’re struggling to get more than 25 African American voters into a room for you, that’s problematic,” said Brady Quirk-Garvan, the former chairman of the Charleston Democrats. Antjuan Seawright, a South Carolina-based Democratic consultant, added, “It means you have not moved the needle.”

Buttigieg backers, though, say he just needed a little more time.

“Last time I checked, I’m black, and he earned my support,” said South Carolina state Rep. J.A. Moore, who endorsed Buttigieg earlier this month. “If he was given more time to earn more support from people who look like me and have life experiences like me, we might be in a different place right now.”


Jessica Sharp, who spoke at the panel discussion in Greenville, said “up until I came here” she planned to vote for Biden, but after meeting Buttigieg, she “may need to reconsider one more time.”

Sharp is the kind of voter the Buttigieg campaign desperately hoped to reach before Saturday’s primary. But Seawright said that for most South Carolinians, “no amount of time would’ve changed the hearts and minds about Joe Biden.”

Buttigieg isn’t the only candidate struggling among black voters here ahead of the Feb. 29 primary, the first broad test of African American opinion in the Democratic primary. Elizabeth Warren is also stuck in the single digits with 5 percent support in the Monmouth University poll released Thursday, while Amy Klobuchar registered 0 percent.

Klobuchar, for her part, didn’t spend any time in South Carolina in the final two days leading up to the primary, opting for campaigning in Super Tuesday states instead.

Like Buttigieg, Warren has also hosted meet-and-greets with black voters here, in addition to larger rallies, including several featuring musician John Legend earlier this week. The smaller settings allowed for “a really good dialogue” with voters so “they can get to know her,” said Tameika Isaac-Devine, a Columbia city councilwoman who endorsed Warren this month and attended several of these meetings.

Isaac-Devine also noted that Biden and Sanders are more familiar politicians who have spent years building up their connections within the community.

“When people look at their numbers,” with black voters, “they didn’t start working on that this election, and that’s not the same with Elizabeth or Mayor Pete,” Isaac-Devine said. “They haven’t been running for president for years.”

Buttigieg did devote significant time and resources to the state. Aside from billionaire Tom Steyer, no other Democrat spent more on TV in South Carolina, dropping more than $2.5 million. The ads featured African American supporters of Buttigieg from South Bend, touting their endorsement of their former mayor.


But Buttigieg couldn’t outrun his missteps with African American voters, both in his campaign’s outreach and in his own past statements. Buttigieg’s campaign bungled the endorsement rollout of his Douglass Plan, a series of policies focused on uplifting black America, and in November, Buttigieg’s rivals were asked about his campaign’s usage of a stock photograph of a Kenyan woman.

During his tenure as mayor, Buttigieg failed to diversify his police department, and in June, Buttigieg confronted an officer-involved killing of a black man in South Bend.

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For Echevarria, Buttigieg’s handling of the shooting won her over because he showed “the kind of leadership” that says “things obviously aren’t the way they should be here, so how can we fix it,” she said.

And in his final push in the state, Buttigieg broadcast a message of humility, talking frequently about his own privilege as a white man.

“I’ve been humbled by the knowledge that has been brought to me by those I know, that I have only a certain perspective, that I will not have the perspective, as I walk down a mall or a street, of seeing eyes look at me differently and presume me to be dangerous,” Buttigieg told congregants at First Baptist Church of James Island on Sunday. “My point, standing before you, is not to claim that I understand more than I do, but rather promise, as the Scripture says, not to lean on to my own understanding too much, but to do a lot of listening along the way.”

But “this is South Carolina, and he has not been able to get into the African American community, as he would need to,” said former South Carolina Democratic Party chair Carol Fowler.

Buttigieg’s performance in South Carolina could strangle momentum for his campaign before next week’s Super Tuesday, when the campaign has already acknowledged he won’t win any states outright. Instead, they hope to rack up delegates going congressional district by congressional district.

But lingering fears about his poor showing in South Carolina and with black voters were evident even among state Democrats still deciding whether to support him.


“I worry about him getting minority voters and pulling people out in November,” said Beth Meyer-Bernstein, a professor at the College of Charleston and an undecided voter considering Buttigieg.

“Look around this room,” she added, gesturing to the 500-person crowd gathered to hear the mayor speak in Charleston Friday morning. “There’s not a lot of diversity here right now, and that really worries me.”