Rivals knock Buttigieg as New Hampshire vote nears

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Rivals of presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg moved with urgency Sunday to slow his momentum, sharply critiquing his struggles with nonwhite voters, lack of government experience and indebtedness to wealthy donors.

The 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Ind., who is consistently polling at the top of the field in New Hampshire, just behind Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, jabbed back. He appeared on all five of the Sunday morning political talk shows — the only candidate to do so — where he made the case that the movement to stop him embodied an arrogant Washington mindset turning voters against Democrats.

“We know that we might look small from the perspective of Washington but for us it is what is going on in Washington that is small and small-minded,” Buttigieg said on CNN’s “State of the Nation.” He said communities in the industrial Midwest and rural America “are frustrated by being made into a punchline by Washington politicians.”

Buttigieg was responding to stepped up attacks led by former Vice President Joe Biden, who posted a new digital ad this weekend mocking Buttigieg’s achievements in South Bend. Biden also unleashed on the former mayor at a news conference Saturday, during which he said “this guy’s not a Barack Obama.”

“He’s right,” Buttigieg said on CNN. “Neither is he. Neither is any of us running for president. This is not 2008. It is 2020. And we are in a new moment calling for a different kind of leadership. We are facing the most disruptive president in modern times.”

Tracking polls suggested the critiques may be having an effect, stalling his ascendancy as New Hampshire voters prepare to go to the polls Tuesday. But those reconsidering Buttigieg are not necessarily aligning with Biden, the candidate most aggressively attacking him, and...