The 800 pound gorilla in the room: I am so disappointed with the rampant homophobia of my fellow PoC [View all]

[Celerity]

I had hoped Pete could start to make inroads but this looks like a death knell for him.

Buttigieg is polling 2nd or 3rd (in one national poll on MSNBC this morning he was only trailing Biden 32% to 28%) amongst white Democratic voters, but he is just getting crushed with PoC, especially amongst black Americans. 3%, 2% even ZERO percent (South Carolina) in multiple polls I have been digging through. There is almost no other explanation other than the correlation between his sexual identity and their lack of almost any support. Not when the spread is this vast on a racial support basis and seeing some of others who are polling above him with PoC.

As a lesbian who is also half West Indian (Westies can be amongst the most virulently LGBTQ-hating of all people of colour) I have seen this in my own life at times (although I am not a typical PoC by any means), and I brushed off (to a point) many Biden people who claimed Pete can never win a Dem nomination because of the incredible power anti-gay African-Americans have in the primary process, but so far, depressingly, it appears they were completely right and I massively overestimated the progress we have made.

Pete Buttigieg polling at 0% among black voters in South Carolina

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/pete-buttigieg-black-voters-south-carolina.html


I do not see how he can overcome this, short of some lightning strike during the first round of debates (and I cannot come up with a good example of that). This apparent toxic outcome also really hurts his chances to be picked as VP, for fear (from the nominee) of alienating the base. I also have to add I am shocked at the level of A-A support for Biden, who has a really, really bad record on issues affecting us PoC (be it a historic opposition to school integration/bussing, from horrific crime bills and drug wars where he was a leader of both, to a series of horrid financial bills that have knee-capped millions of all races/ethnicities, etc etc, over the 35 years before he became Obama's VP). I guess his ties to Obama are strong enough to not only overcome all that, but supercharge his support with A-A's. I am far too critical a thinker to fall for that.