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March 02, 2020 The Democrats' election campaign loses one of the protagonists after the fourth round of primaries in South Carolina: Pete Buttigieg surrenders, who finished fourth with only 8.2% of the preferences. A decision that follows that of the billionaire Tom Steyer, which never managed to emerge.

The withdrawal of 'mayor Pete' may seem premature considering the victory in Iowa and the second place in New Hampshire, which gave him the third position as number of delegates (25), behind only Joe Biden (48) and Bernie Sanders ( 56), but then came the braking in Nevada with the Latinos and the flop in South Carolina with the blacks. They are traditionally democratic votes, no candidate can risk that they prefer not to vote instead of voting for a candidate from whom they do not feel represented. Both in Nevada and South Carolina votes went to Biden and in the election campaign he always stressed the continuity of his proposals with the policies of Barack Obama of which he was deputy. Here too Biden defeated Buttigieg.

At 38, Buttigieg was the youngest presidential candidate dem, even younger than Obama himself. Buttigieg speaks and thinks like the young generation he belongs to, Obama did too. And like Obama, the former mayor of South Bend has a reformist agenda on the environment, or on social issues. As Obama was the first African American president, Buttigieg would have been the first openly homosexual. With Obama he shares a progressive reformist agenda, but without the extreme positions (for an American voter) of Sanders and Warren, their anti-capitalist tones, plans for a university and free healthcare for all.

Similarities that seemed less relevant to the voters of the dem primaries than those advertised by Joe Biden and that rewarded the former vice president by helping him on the road to the leadership of moderate democratic candidates: the same one that the former mayor of South Bend wanted and still aspires Michael Bloomberg. It was now unlikely that Buttigieg could reverse the trend, much better save the electoral contributions received and use them for the next occasion, which will not be missed by this outsider who has revealed himself as a rising star of the democratic party.

But now it will be interesting to see if he will support Biden or Bloomberg and whether he will be chosen by either of them as deputy in the race to the White House. The answer in less than 48 hours, to the March 3 supertuesday.