If elected, Pete Buttigieg (boot-a-judge, also known as “Mayor Pete”), the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, would be the youngest U.S. president ever. He also would be the first openly gay president in the nation's history. Buttigieg came out publicly in an essay in the South Bend Tribune during his re-election campaign in 2015.
Key facts about Buttigieg
- Age: 37
- Born: South Bend, Indiana
- Undergraduate: Harvard University
- Date candidacy announced: Announced his exploratory committee Jan. 23, 2019.
- Previous roles: Mayor of South Bend, Indiana. He began serving in the U.S. Navy Reserve in 2009 and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2014. He previously worked for McKinsey & Company in Chicago.
Buttigieg's stance on key issues
- College costs: He has concerns about soaring student debt and believes college is too expensive for "too many people." He supports expanding the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that clears loans in exchange for public service work, per CNBC.
- Climate change: Buttigieg supports the Paris climate agreement and the Green New Deal, and he thinks climate change is a national security threat, per PBS. He is supportive of government-subsidized solar panels.
- Guns: He is a member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns and supports universal background checks and banning guns in schools, according to PBS.
- Health care: He is supportive of single-payer health care, but wants to transition to the model via an all-payer rate-setting, which would not eliminate private insurance companies, per the LA Times.
- Immigration: Buttigieg supports providing a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, a local network, WSBT reported.
- Non-discrimination: He supports updating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to explicitly apply non-discrimination protections to the LGBTQ community.
- Supreme Court: He is open to having more than 9 Supreme Court justices.
- Electoral College: He is supportive of abolishing it.
Key criticisms of Buttigieg
- His age: Buttigieg says being a millennial candidate would be a benefit, rather than a hurdle; for instance, he says he understands student debt better than older candidates. He also says he has a "personal appreciation of the stakes" for climate change since he will be around to deal with the consequences.
- Lack of national profile: Amid a Democratic field crowded with recognizable political heavy-weights, a Morning Consult poll found in March that Buttigieg was the top candidate for only 1% of voters. He did get a boost to his national profile when he ran to be chair of the Democratic National Committee.
- Police recordings: Buttigieg demoted his police chief and fired the police communications director for illegally recording police officers' phone calls that allegedly revealed officers making racist comments. Buttigieg would not release the recordings because he said publicizing the conversations would violate the Federal Wiretap Act, since they were illegally obtained. Some criticized this decision as protecting the officers. The legal battle over whether the tapes should be released remains ongoing.
1 fun thing about Buttigieg
- He speaks multiple languages, including French, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Maltese, Arabic and Dari.
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