ORANGEBURG, S.C. (AP) — The last time Pete Buttigieg was giving a political speech in South Carolina, it was to mark a distant finish in the state's primary that effectively ended his campaign for president.
Returning this weekend as he mulls a second run for the White House, Buttigieg set out to reintroduce himself to the state and the Black voters he struggled to win in 2020. The results were encouraging.
There was a standing ovation in a Black church
in South Carolina when Buttigieg was credited for helping bring millions of federal dollars to the area for a project as President Joe Biden’s transportation secretary. A second ovation came as Buttigieg gave a speech warning of a country in “big trouble” while laying out his own vision for what should come next.
“There is no such thing as again in real life. The only way out is through," Buttigieg told the crowd of more than 200 people at an NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner. “If we recognize and embrace a future that is different from the past, we will do better."
The warm applause was a markedly different reception than six years ago, when a fourth-place showing in South Carolina helped derail Buttigieg's presidential campaign while exposing his failure to connect with Black voters. The state is likely to have an even greater say in his political future as the first contest in the Democratic presidential primary in 2028.
Starting the election calendar in South Carolina is intended in part to give Black voters a greater voice at the outset of the nominating process. For Buttigieg and other potential contenders, winning the support of this group that makes up a majority of South Carolina’s Democratic electorate is essential.
“You need to demonstrate that you can win Black voters,” said Jaime Harrison, a former Democratic National Committee chair and South Carolina Democratic Party chairman. “If you can’t win Black voters, you can’t be the nominee of our party.”
Buttigieg insists he has made no final decision about whether to run for president again.
“Right now, I'm totally focused on 2026,” he told reporters Saturday.
But his South Carolina trip — a week after visiting another early-voting state, Nevada — had all the trappings of a potential presidential bid.
He raised money Friday in Charleston with Nancy Lacore, a U.S. House candidate trying to flip a Republican-held seat. On Saturday morning, he spoke at a policy conference before traveling to Claflin University, a historically Black university in Orangeburg.
Divina Perry, a third-year student at Claflin, said she came away from Buttigieg’s visit thinking he would be a “good candidate” if he ran.
“Secretary Pete has definitely put himself on my radar for 2028 now, for sure,” Perry said. But, she added, “I do want to see more representation from people who look like me.”
That evening, Buttigieg attended a dinner at a church in Orangeburg, a nearly three-quarters Black city with a deep history in the Civil Rights Movement. The crowd included local NAACP leaders, ministers and elected officials. Buttigieg worked the room, giving hugs and taking photos.
“He is responsible for the Railroad Corner,” said Orangeburg Mayor Michael Butler, referencing a project aimed at revitalizing the city’s downtown that received a $22.7 million federal grant. “Do I need to say any more? We need to stand and welcome the former secretary.”
Buttigieg used the speech that followed to make a broader case about the direction of the country, arguing that Democrats cannot separate Americans’ economic frustrations from a political system he described as increasingly broken.
"I have come to believe that the kitchen table cannot be improved unless we are also reforming the institutional and political floor on which that kitchen table sits.”
For Buttigieg, the weekend offered signs of how much has changed since he came to South Carolina in 2020 as a 38-year-old Indiana mayor asking voters to take a chance on him. He points to what he delivered during four years in Biden’s Cabinet, including specific projects in the state.
But Buttigieg said he also came to South Carolina “to propose something” about the country’s future. Butler, Orangeburg’s mayor, liked what he heard.
“His speech was what you talk about at the kitchen table. How America is going to survive all of this?” Butler said. “He brought hope to us."
South Carolina Democratic leaders say the close, personal engagement with candidates is exactly what they hoped for. Those involved in the push to make South Carolina first envisioned the living-room conversations and retail politics long associated with Iowa and New Hampshire.
“You got to go listen. You got to go all over the place,” Harrison said. “You have to make meaningful investments. That’s how you win South Carolina.”
Buttigieg is hardly alone in his early trip to the state.
Other potential 2028 contenders, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna of California, have made trips to the state as what is expected to be a large Democratic field begins to take shape. Former Vice President Kamala Harris already has deep ties in the state.
The electorate they will encounter has changed from 2020, when Biden’s victory in the state resurrected his presidential campaign and put him on a path to ousting Republican President Donald Trump.
Four years later, Trump defeated Harris and returned to the White House, which Black leaders say has significantly hurt their community. Earlier this year, a Supreme Court decision weakened a core provision of the Voting Rights Act, threatening Black political representation across the South.
“We must start our process where democracy must still be fought for, in the full view of the nation,” former interim DNC chair Donna Brazile said in a speech this year advocating for South Carolina to go first.
Buttigieg addressed that anxiety directly Saturday night, describing efforts to weaken the Voting Rights Act as the culmination of a “multidecade effort.” He warned of a broader push “to demolish African American political power.”
Harrison said Buttigieg's trip this weekend was a "good start,” but that Buttigieg and all the other potential 2028 candidates have a long road ahead to prove themselves to the state's voters.
“It has to be a good start and then you got to continue,” Harrison said. “It can’t just be, ‘Oh, pop in and then I’m going to pop back out.’”
