This messaging will manifest itself both in Buttigieg schedule over his final week in Iowa — the candidate will headline events in Webster, Boone and Wapello counties, all of which flipped to Trump in 2016 — as well as their decision to headline a Fox News town hall on Sunday in Des Moines, hoping the platform on Trump’s favorite cable outlet will reach some voters who helped him win the White House.
The campaign will also begin to run a slate of new digital ads aimed at building support in places Trump won in 2016, including a series of 15-second ads that will highlight five Iowa counties that Trump won in 2016 — Appanoose, Henry, Marion, Warren and Washington — and Buttigieg’s pitch to win them back. The ads feature the margin that Trump won the county by and why the campaign believes Buttigieg can win…
The strategy reflects an urgency for Buttigieg in Iowa. Sources close to Buttigieg tell CNN that there is a growing consensus inside the campaign that if the mayor does not place in the top two in either Iowa or New Hampshire or if he places behind former Vice President Joe Biden in both states, the race could effectively be over for the 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
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