That’s what he’s thinking about doing, since their sitting senator is planning to retire.
This is a much better path to sustained national relevance than another run at the White House.
I still think he has a ceiling of support because too much of the country is too backward and ignorant and prejudiced to take a gay man seriously as a leader, but if he’s going to break through, this is the way to do it.
I’m from Michigan and I support Pete’s candidacy 100%.
I liked his politics, family, interviews, books etc. I guess he and Chasten live near Traverse City so that seems a good base too. I would send a little money for a campaign for sure.
After his first term, he would be 50. That would be time for the 2032 presidential election and he would be now a cabinet member and a Senator.
Democrat
Cabinet member
Senator from a large EV state
Guarantied win.
Are you being sarcastic there?
I can think of a Democratic senator with a cabinet position who’d beg to differ.
No comment
The best argument against his candidacy is “The U.S. will never elect a gay person, so when you self-destructive lefties learn and finally nominate a straight white Christian male?”
That lesson was driven home when we nominated Biden in 2020, but I refuse to buy it. I don’t llke the idea of being blackmailed by bigots into nominating the candidates THEY want instead of the best possible candidates we can find.
So do I want to give the GOP a pass? They can nominate the worst conceivable candidate for POTUS (and they have, now three times in a row) but as long as he’s a straight white Christian male, he will defeat anyone we run against him who isn’t all four of those things. I don’t want to give in to that twisted logic.
Pete’s the best speaker, and the best candidate, the Dems have come up with in ages.
from the moment they moved to michigan i expected buttigieg to either go for governor or senator.
Somebody remind Mayor Pete not to run his own email server.
Pete Buttigieg is expected to forgo a run for Michigan’s open US Senate seat in 2026, according to two people familiar with the former transportation secretary’s plans, setting up a potential presidential bid in 2028. Buttigieg was calling fellow Michigan Democrats on Thursday morning to tell them of his decision. He is expected to publicly announce his decision later Thursday…
Buttigieg previously ruled out running for governor of Michigan next year, a source familiar with this thinking told CNN last month.
Because of the anti-gay prejudice in the U.S. I expect that if he were to win the Democratic Presidential primaries he would be defeated in the November election.
I agree he will get crushed in 2028 if he is the Dem nominee. Homophobia is still very strong in this country despite what some people believe.
Also, while polling in Michigan showed he would do well in the D primary for the Senate race he had very weak support among African Americans and was not doing well as a result in the Detroit area.
Or maybe he’s exactly what the party and the nation need.
Dems cannot out-bigot the GOP, nor is anyone fooled by the “we’ll run only an old white straight Christian man for President” thing because they know there’s women, racial minorities, non-Christians, and LGBTQ people in elected office as Dems. Absent getting rid of every woman Dem governor and Dem POC member of Congress and big-city mayor, which would make us more MAGA than the MAGAs, you can’t win by playing that game. As others have said, the bigots won’t vote for Bigot-Lite as long as Bigot-Original-Flavor is on the menu.
But if you run someone with both eloquence and spirit, who can debate his opponents and rally his supporters with rousing speeches, who can make it clear he cares about the American people – all things I feel Buttigieg has in spades – maybe that breaks through enough people’s biases. Not the full-blown bigots, but people with biases that can be overcome.
Anti-black prejudice has a lot longer and deeper history in this country than anti-gay prejudice* and yet Obama was elected.
*if only because people were thinking and debating about what to do with black people, while they rarely thought about and, until recent decades never debated, what to do with homosexual people.
I’m not a fan, but I don’t think homophobia is an insurmountable barrier for him.
The people who would openly say they’d never vote for a gay person are all Republicans now. Swing voters and Democrats may be homophobic in the sense of having negative stereotypes about gay people, just as they might about black people. But they were willing to vote for Obama, because he clearly and obviously didn’t fit any of those stereotypes.
They may have even voted for him because it made them feel virtuous about not being prejudiced, despite still actually being hella prejudiced. Likewise, Buttigieg is the non-threatening, clean cut, churchgoing, monogamous married gay guy that Americans will accept to make them feel more open-minded than they actually are.
Not true. I know several Democrat-voting, maga-hating people in West Michigan who would have real hard time voting for Pete because he’s gay. They’re older religious voters.
I don’t think he’s charismatic enough to motivate enough people to vote for him. He’s very qualified for the position, but I don’t think he’ll win over the hearts of enough people. He definitely knows his stuff, but that’s not enough to win. I find him somewhat boring. I actually think that his sexual orientation will make him have more appeal, since it’s something unique about him. It will get people talking about him and is something they will be passionate about. If it wasn’t for that, I don’t think he would stand out against the other primary candidates. He’d just be another smart, bland, white male. I could see him winning the primary, but I don’t think he’d win the actual election.
The problem is that the non-white/Christian/hetro/males are getting elected in overwhelmingly blue states and cities. Winning all the blue states plus a number of purple states would be needed for an Electoral College win.
I think there is too much held over bigotry to elect Pete, I hold out Kamala as evidence.
Some groups that are traditionally part of the base for the Democratic Party can be very conservative on social issues - African Americans, Latinos, Muslims - and are not particularly open to supporting gay rights. I’m pretty sure that would be a problem in a statewide or national election.