Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg will hold a get-out-the-vote rally Monday night at San Ysidro High School — not in Chula Vista as previously signaled.
The 38-year-old Democrat from South Bend, Indiana, will speak indoors at the school only miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, his campaign said.
The event — his final before Super Tuesday voting — is at 7:30 p.m. at the school at 5353 Airway Road in San Diego. The public can RSVP at this site.
Meanwhile, a representative of rival Democrat Tom Steyer, the San Francisco billionaire, said a planned visit Monday to San Diego has been canceled.
“We’re not going to be doing a town hall in San Diego,” said Anita Narayana, a spokeswoman for the campaign. “Unfortunately, the schedule changed.”
At the San Ysidro rally, Buttigieg is likely to echo an argument made in a fundraising letter from Hari Sevugan, his deputy campaign manager.
If Bernie Sanders is the party’s nominee, he said, “down-ballot Democrats running in hyper-competitive swing and conservative states will be forced to do so while answering questions about eliminating all private insurance and raising taxes on everyone earning over $29,000 a year.”
Sevugan added: “If we want to keep the House in Democratic hands, we need to think about the people who turned the House blue — 41 Democrats who are not running on Bernie’s platform. In fact, they are running away from his platform — quickly.”
According to the campaign, Buttigieg will appear at a lunchtime Oklahoma City rally on Monday before flying to California.
“In the last two weeks, Pete Buttigieg has made two trips to California, with events in Sacramento, Los Angeles and Turlock,” the campaign said.
Going into Saturday’s South Carolina primary, Buttigieg had 26 delegates to the Milwaukee national convention — behind Sanders’ 45 but ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden with 15, according to Real Clear Politics. Some 1,991 delegates are needed to secure the party domination on first ballot.
But Biden was expected to shut out most of his rivals with a big showing in South Carolina.
On Thursday, Politico reported that Buttigieg is focusing on selected districts in smaller media markets throughout the country to rack up delegates — “from Austin, Texas and its suburbs to San Diego, northern Maine, and other locales where Democrats flipped House seats in 2018.”
“But it’s a risky strategy to maintain momentum,” wrote Elena Schneider, “and that risk is born out of necessity.”
With 8.3% support, Buttigieg is running fifth in recent California polling, where 415 pledged delegates are at stake Tuesday, according to fivethrityeight.com. Sanders has 33.8% —followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (14.3%), Biden (13.1%) and Mike Bloomberg (11.2%).
San Ysidro High School has been a go-to place for rallies focusing on immigration and the Hispanic vote, with Sanders appearing there in late December.