Buttigieg Bests Biden in New Hampshire Presidential Poll

Pete Buttigieg has bested his boss, President Joe Biden, in a new presidential poll out of New Hampshire.

In the latest Granite State Poll, released Wednesday, the University of New Hampshire Survey Center asked likely Democratic primary voters in the state for their first choice among several potential presidential candidates. Twenty-three percent said Buttigieg, currently the secretary of Transportation, who sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Eighteen percent said Biden, tying him with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, another 2020 presidential aspirant.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders came in at 15 percent, and all others were in single digits: U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at 6 percent, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar at 5 percent, Vice President Kamala Harris at 2 percent, and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and California Gov. Gavin Newsom at 1 percent each.

New Hampshire holds the first presidential primary in the country.

Biden is expected to announce whether he will run for reelection shortly after his State of the Union speech, which is scheduled for February 7. His age — he is 80 — and low approval ratings have led to doubts that he will seek reelection. In the New Hampshire poll, 66 percent of respondents said he “probably” or “definitely” should not run.

Buttigieg, meanwhile, has taken some tentative steps toward another presidential campaign, after the 2020 contest saw him go farther than any previous out gay White House aspirant. His allies have created a political action committee, Win the Era, which endorsed some candidates in the midterms and “allowed Buttigieg to maintain a political footprint as he remains in the Biden Cabinet,” Politico noted in December. There is also a related dark money group, Win the Era Action Fund; dark money organizations are designed to influence voters without disclosing the source of their funds.

But “people close to Buttigieg say he’s in no hurry to run for office again, especially with two small children at home,” according to the Politico article.

Buttigieg has received some criticism for recent transportation problems, such as the Southwest Airlines computer glitch that left holiday travelers stranded but Jack Colwell, a columnist for Indiana’s South Bend Tribune — Buttigieg’s former hometown newspaper — said that’s in no way the secretary’s fault.

“Anyone looking at facts rather than just at a chance to slam Buttigieg won’t hold the transportation secretary responsible for the pre-Christmas blizzard and Southwest management failing to upgrade outdated computer technology,” Colwell wrote. “Buttigieg quickly and frequently stressed that the airline would be required to compensate stranded passengers, threatened fines and harshly criticized airline executives.”

The Granite State Poll was conducted online from January 19-23 and had 892 respondents.