Pete Buttigieg is having a moment

[left-of-center2012]

Pete Buttigieg can tell that things have changed.

Buoyed by positive reviews for the South Bend mayor's performance at an hour-long CNN town hall earlier this month and a steady stream of well received appearances on TV, Buttigieg's 2020 presidential exploratory committee has felt a sustained surge of momentum over the past two weeks. The once little-known mayor is getting recognized across the country, while his committee has mapped out plans to double in size in the coming weeks as a steady stream of new donations flood to the 37-year-old Democrat.

It's been an eye-opening experience for Buttigieg, a mild-mannered candidate who seems allergic to bragging. "It's heady," Buttigieg said in an interview with CNN. "And it has happened very quickly."

Mike Schmuhl, Buttigieg's campaign manager who has been the mayor's friend since the two met in ninth grade, said that the campaign is looking to double in size in the near future and has rented a campaign headquarters in South Bend that is five times larger than the one the exploratory committee currently occupies.

According to Lis Smith, Buttigieg's spokeswoman, the committee raised more than $600,000 in the first 24 hours after the CNN town hall.
When the campaign followed up that fundraising with a call for $500,000 in donations before March 31, they raised it in 24 hours, Smith said.
When they asked for the same pledge two days later, they raised another $500,000, bringing their haul from those two emails alone to more than $1 million, she added.

And when the short-staffed committee put out a call for resumes, they received more than 2,000, according to Smith.

full article at:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/24/politics/pete-buttigieg-south-carolina-campaign-trip/index.html

[shanny]

1. Good for him. And good for us, too.

I'm very impressed.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Great article! He continues to do well everywhere he goes.

[USALiberal]

3. I just started reading his book, it is great, donated $25 today also. nt

[mobeau69]

4. Go Pete!

[Glimmer of Hope]

5. Great article! I am curious to see his latest fundraising numbers.

There is so much buzz right now.

[patricia92243]

6. I didn't know about them getting the second $500k. Will be excited to hear how much they raise by

the end of March.

[littlemissmartypants]

7. Cross post. SXSW Festival, CNN, March 10th, Town Hall, Austin

Video here.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/128737646

[elleng]

8. Lis Smith is a Democratic campaign communications specialist

and co-founder of 50 State Communications in New York.[1] She was the deputy campaign director for Martin O'Malley's 2016 presidential campaign.[2] Smith previously worked on campaigns for former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), President Barack Obama (D) and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D).

Lis Smith began working on campaigns shortly after graduating from Dartmouth College. She was a field representative in South Dakota for then-Sen. Tom Daschle's unsuccessful re-election campaign in 2004 and press secretary for Sen. Claire McCaskill's (D-Mo.) first campaign in 2006.[3]

In 2012, Smith was the rapid response director for Barack Obama's (D) presidential campaign. During the campaign, Forbes considered her one of "the essential people to follow on Twitter," saying:[4]

“ The Obama campaign’s director of rapid response, Lis Smith, is not afraid to take the gloves off on Twitter. She uses her feed to, well, rapidly respond to the news. Smith also gets points for interacting. She often mentions others in her tweets and sometimes gets into multiple tweet disputes with people she disagrees with, which are always fun to watch.[5] ”
The New York Times noted that Smith's rapid response tweets "were a big reason that the campaign was able to define Mitt Romney before he could define himself."[3]'>>>

https://ballotpedia.org/Lis_Smith