South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg is considered a popular young leader in the national Democratic Party. Here’s why.
Dwight Adams/IndyStar
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks to the media, after deciding to run for the Democratic National Committee Chair in January 2017.(Photo: Michael Caterina/South Bend Tribune)
He’s mayor of a small Rust Belt city in northern Indiana.
He’s never held statewide, never mind national office.
He lost a bid to run the national Democratic party.
And yet Pete Buttigieg, two-term mayor of South Bend, Ind., is getting some serious media buzz about a possible run for president in 2020.
Politico.com published an article this week about Buttigieg’s ambitions headlined “Buttigieg gets closer to a 2020 campaign.” The South Bend Tribune followed with their own article: “Is the mayor of South Bend really considering a run for president?” Then there was that article in The New York Times in June of 2016 credited with kindling excitement about Buttigieg that was headlined “The first gay president?”
And don’t overlook social media efforts to get Buttigieg elected president, including a Facebook page titled Mayor Pete for President 2020 and a “Mayor Pete for America” effort reportedly launched by a Washington, D.C., resident who has never met Buttigieg but liked what he’d heard about him from The Times article two years ago.
Politico Magazine writer Edward-Isaac Dovere made his case in his March 27 article.
Buttigieg has a PAC that is already spending money in a handful of states, Dovere wrote, including Kansas, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Colorado and soon-to-be-announced Iowa, where the nation’s first serious test for president is held. He’s also lining up a hard-charging staff that can keep his name in the news.
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An openly gay politician, Buttigieg could be an attractive candidate at a time when expanding LGBT rights is a key issue for many Americans. He’s also a veteran, having spent a seven-month stint in Afghanistan in 2014 as a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve. And he’s a millennial and a bright, young star in the Democratic Party, earning a Harvard undergraduate degree and winning a Rhodes scholarship in 2004.
“Buttigieg, 36, is getting closer to a presidential race,” Dovere writes. “And serious people are telling the South Bend, Indiana, mayor, who’d be the first major presidential candidate who’s openly gay, an Afghanistan veteran or a millennial, to take it seriously.”
Buttigieg, whose name is of Maltese origin and pronounced BOOT-edge-edge, talked recently about his chances — and his appeal.
“I think it’s maybe a sign of the times. I think it’s telling you that things are kind of wide open in a way that hasn’t been true in a long time. I think it shows that there is an interest in the middle of the country,” Buttigieg said in a Politico podcast. “I think it shows that there’s at least curiosity, if not appetite, for what a newer generation of leaders is going to look like. And I think it reflects the fact that we’re really living in a season for cities and for mayors.”
Buttigieg did share the national stage, for a fleeting moment, back in January 2016, when he decided to make a run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He dropped out a month later, however, after saying he didn’t have the votes.
“Mayor Pete” does realize such a candidacy would be the epitome of a long shot. He knows it’s a little crazy to think a relatively unknown mayor from a city of just over 100,000 residents could think about running for president. But, as Politico pointed out, “serious people have been pushing him to run, and he is seriously thinking about it.”
“I understand where that narrative comes from,” he said in that story. “But again, I think it underestimates the role of surprise in politics.”
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Still, one negative that Buttigieg shouldn’t be surprised about is the pushback he’ll likely face from some voters who don’t like it that he’s gay.
Buttigieg came face to face with that while speaking recently in Topeka, Kan., when he faced protesters from the Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church, a group that has spoken out openly against gays in the military.
But even while being confronted by signs of intolerance while viewing the Westboro church property with a reporter, Buttigieg saw a glimmer of hope just across the street.
There stood the Equality House, a rainbow-painted property that has been used for local LGBTQ weddings and events.
Call IndyStar digital producer Dwight Adams at (317) 444-6532. Follow him on Twitter: @hdwightadams.
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