Openly Gay Mayor Pete Buttigieg Joins 2020 Presidential Race
Out, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg made headlines last month when he announced he wouldn’t be running for another term as mayor. Rumors started to fly that he would be running for president, and it turns out that those rumors were correct.
I launched a presidential exploratory committee because it is a season for boldness and it is time to focus on the future. Are you ready to walk away from the politics of the past?
Join the team at https://t.co/Xlqn10brgH. pic.twitter.com/K6aeOeVrO7
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) January 23, 2019
“An openly LGBTQ elected official forming a presidential exploratory committee is a historic and powerful moment for the LGBTQ community and the entire country,” said Annise Parker, president and CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, in a press release. “Exactly fifty years after the Stonewall uprising that gave birth to the modern LGBTQ rights movement, we are finally in a place where an openly LGBTQ presidential candidate can be a serious contender. For the teenager in small-town America who is just coming to terms with their sexual orientation or gender identity, having an openly LGBTQ person running for the most important political office in the world will demonstrate there is no limit to what they can achieve – and that is transformative.”
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) January 23, 2019
“I think a lot about intergenerational justice. Short-term versus long-term helps to explain a lot of the policy disagreements that happen between the parties, and I would argue that in most ways we are the party with more long-term thinking,” Buttigieg told The Atlantic after officially announcing his run.
Buttigieg is well-known for being a mayor of South Bend, Indiana, a region that is traditionally conservative. He is a democrat and openly gay, married to his partner, and a Afghanistan veteran. He receives a lot of respect in his town, despite not being the usual Indiana mayor.
So far, it looks like there are a lot of viable and competitive options for 2020s democratic contenders.
Photo courtesy of Pete Buttigieg’s Facebook
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