Buttigieg to run first televised ads in South Carolina

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s (D) campaign is slated to run its first televised ads in South Carolina on Tuesday.

The ads, which were first reported by NBC News, are part of a bigger $2 million ad buy in the Palmetto State.

The spots will air as Buttigieg campaigns in South Carolina, a state where he has continuously trailed in the polls. 

A Quinnipiac University survey released earlier this month showed former Vice President Joe Biden leading the Democratic presidential field in South Carolina with the support of 33 percent of respondents, while Warren and Sanders trailed at 13 percent and 11 percent, respectively. Buttigieg came in fourth place with 6 percent support. 

The Midwestern mayor has struggled in South Carolina in large part because of his low levels of support among African Americans. Polls have found Buttigieg’s support with black voters at zero percent or in the low single digits.

Buttigieg faced backlash this week for past remarks he made while campaigning for local office in 2011 in which he said that children “need to see evidence that education is going to work for them.”

“You’re motivated because you believe that at the end of your educational process, there’s a reward, there’s a stable life, there’s a job, and there are a lot of kids, especially the lower-income, minority neighborhoods, who literally just haven’t seen it work. There isn’t somebody they know personally who testifies to the value of education,” Buttigieg said in the clip.

Michael Harriot, a writer for The Root, criticized Buttigieg in an opinion piece titled “Pete Buttigieg Is a Lying MF” after the comments resurfaced this week. 

Buttigieg said he reached out to Harriot after the piece published. 

“What I said in that comment before I became mayor does not reflect the totality of my understanding then, and certainly now, about the obstacles that students of color face in our system today,” Buttigieg said.