Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders — who finished neck-and-neck in last week’s Iowa caucuses — traded barbs during dueling appearances on Sunday news shows, just two days before New Hampshire holds its primary election.
Sanders boasted of his grassroots fundraising prowess, while claiming Buttigieg is beholden to billionaire donors.
“We’re going to contrast our views with Mayor Buttigieg. And one of the areas of contrast, to be honest with you, is that last count he has about 40 billionaires who are contributing to his campaign, the heads of — the CEOs of the large pharmaceutical industries and the insurance companies and so forth,” the Vermont senator said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Buttigieg, the 38-year-old the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., noted that the Sanders campaign hauled in $25 million in January.
“Well, Bernie’s pretty rich, and I would happily accept a contribution from him,” Buttigieg said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“And, by the way, my campaign is where it is because hundreds of thousands of individuals, no corporate PACs, individuals, have contributed through PeteforAmerica.com,” he added.
“I’m the mayor of South Bend. It’s not like that’s an establishment fund-raising powerhouse. We were able to get here by putting together a movement. And that movement is the one that is going to turn the page, bring an end to the Trump presidency.”
Sanders’ January take came from 1.3 million donations from 648,000 people.
He and Buttigieg emerged from the problem-plagued vote in Iowa as the leading contenders in New Hampshire, and a CNN tracking poll released Sunday showed Sanders polling at 28 percent to Buttigieg’s 21 percent.
Rounding out the field before Tuesday’s vote are Joe Biden at 12 percent, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts with 9 percent, Sen. Amy Klobuchar at 6 percent and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard with 5 percent.
Biden, who came in fourth in Iowa, lashed out at Buttigieg’s inexperience and Sanders’ identity as a democratic socialist.
“You gonna win in North Carolina? You gonna win in Pennsylvania? You gonna win in those states? In the Midwest?” Biden said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I didn’t put the label on Bernie. Bernie calls himself a Democratic socialist.”
The former vice president said Buttigieg is a “good guy” but that’s not enough.
“I like him and he’s a smart guy — but he’s been the mayor of a city smaller than the city we’re in now,” Biden said in in the interview from Manchester, NH.
“And so what has he done? What has — who has — he pulled together? Does he know any of the foreign leaders?”
Meanwhile, Warren, who finished third in Iowa, insisted she doesn’t have to finish among the top two in neighboring New Hampshire to be successful.
“Look, the way I see this is it’s going to be a long campaign … we’ve built a campaign to go the distance,” she said on ABC.