To be clear, there are probably some black people in South Bend who voted for Buttigieg. Possibly. Maybe.
But this claim by one of his surrogates is not actually correct because of the math. It appears in a New York Times article about Buttigieg’s doomed efforts to garner black votes in southern states.
Mr. Buttigieg used the tour to debut the first black surrogate from South Bend to travel with his campaign — Sharon McBride, a city council member. Mr. Buttigieg introduced her at each of his stops as someone who could help tell the story of his South Bend leadership.
It didn’t take long for Mr. Buttigieg to need defending.
“Look, I’m new on the scene. I get that,” Mr. Buttigieg replied. “So, I know, as somebody who’s new on the scene, I’ve got to earn that trust.”
Then, unprompted, Ms. McBride stood up from her seat.
“One of the myths is that he doesn’t have minority support,” she said. “But if you look at the statistics and the math, I believe in your re-election, you got 80 percent of the votes, and of that 80 percent — you have the city of South Bend, 40 percent minority. So, minorities also had to vote to get Mayor Pete elected.”
The New York Times doesn’t bother to fact check this dubious claim. So it falls to conservative journalists to do the work that the narrative media won’t.
Buttigieg and his supporters love dragging out that 80% number. The problem though is that it’s not 80% of South Bend. It’s 80% of the people who bothered to vote.
How many South Bendians actually voted? Not many.
The media cheers that Buttigieg won 80% of the vote. It neglects to mention that it was 8,515 votes. That’s about the 8,369 votes that came in during the primaries. Buttigieg raised $337,161 dollars while his Republican opponent, Kelly Jones, had raised $584 dollars. The millennial wunderkind needed $40 bucks a vote while his unknown Republican opponent managed at around a quarter a vote.
He didn’t win by 8.515. That was his total.
This was an election in which around 10,000 people voted.
Buttigieg beat relatively unknown Republican challenger – and political newcomer – Kelly Jones. With 100 percent of precincts reporting he had 8,515 votes to her 2,074.
South Bend has a population of over 100,000. A little over 10% voted.
So the 40% minority figure is meaningless.
Black people had a choice between a Republican candidate and Buttigieg. How many of them bothered to vote?
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