Pete Buttigieg, mayor of the fourth-largest city in Indiana, is the preferred Democratic presidential candidate among a certain segment of the voting public. Namely: White, overeducated, urban-dwelling east coast liberals who wear boats shoes on catamarans while vacationing in Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and Cap Cod. Also: white grad students who learned how to play the didgeridoo before it was fashionable to feel ashamed about "cultural appropriation."
Buttigieg is also performing well, as it turns out, with Iowa State Fair attendees who put kernels of corn into jars.
Speaking of unscientific state fair metrics, the 'cast your kernel" poll results have shown Biden ahead but losing steam since Thursday, and a Buttigieg-Warren tussle for second. In 2015, results were something like Clinton 58%, Sanders 38%, O’Malley 5%. pic.twitter.com/WL9JKV7zTo
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) August 12, 2019
The unscientific results are, for the most part, in line with the legitimate, scientific poll of Iowa voters published by Monmouth University last week — except when it comes to Buttigieg, whose support in the corn kernel poll is double what he received in the actual poll, which had him in fifth place, as opposed to second.
"Poll" cast by people putting corn kernels in jars at the Iowa State Fair:
Biden 24
Buttigieg 16
Warren 15
Harris 11
Sanders 9Monmouth University scientific poll of Iowa:
Biden 28
Warren 19
Harris 11
Sanders 9
Buttigieg 8Pretty close, actually! https://t.co/GYhBcBF02T
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 12, 2019
The Monmouth and corn kernel polls show that Buttigieg is somewhere between two and four times as popular as Obamacare among Iowa voters. A Washington Free Beacon analysis has concluded that the disparity is unusual.