# Who is Pete Buttigieg? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 12, 2019, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032 "2019-03-12T21:59:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 22
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/421 "2019-05-22T06:02:57Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > In your opinion, what are the most significant differences between the two candidates? Age. Significance of elected office they have held. Number of votes they have recently received from swing voters. Polling numbers showing appeal to both non-college whites and minority voters. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/422 "2019-05-22T13:03:12Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Age. > > Significance of elected office they have held. > > Number of votes they have recently received from swing voters. > > Polling numbers showing appeal to both non-college whites and minority voters. Age difference is only 9 years. One could argue that Pete has held an executive office while Beto hasn’t. Polling numbers are mostly about name recognition at this point, since we haven’t even had one debate. As for swing voters, is that really true? Beto got 48.3% in 2018, in a state where Hillary got 43.2% in 2016. But Dems did better overall in 2018 - about 5.4% better in the House election. Pete got 80% vote in 2015 in South Bend, but I haven’t yet found how Trump did in the city. Hillary won the county by 0.2% but the city only comprises half the population of the county. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/423 "2019-05-22T14:11:40Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > . > > As for swing voters, is that really true? Beto got 48.3% in 2018, in a state where Hillary got 43.2% in 2016. But Dems did better overall in 2018 - about 5.4% better in the House election. > > Pete got 80% vote in 2015 in South Bend, but I haven’t yet found how Trump did in the city. Hillary won the county by 0.2% but the city only comprises half the population of the county. On the city council of South Bend, five of six district representatives are Democrats as are all three at-large representatives. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/424 "2019-05-22T14:39:31Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > On the city council of South Bend, five of six district representatives are Democrats as are all three at-large representatives. By how wide a margin did they win, do you know? ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/425 "2019-05-22T14:47:11Z")
No, I didn’t look up all the individual election results but I think 8/9 Democratic councilors pretty much tells the tale until shown otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/426 "2019-05-22T15:35:00Z")
College towns tend to be liberal so South Bend seems to fit that . The population is around 100k so that’s bigger than most college towns . Maybe Notre Dame does not have as much influence because of the 100k size. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/427 "2019-05-22T17:54:17Z")
It’s common for the non-college portions of a college town to resent the college, and to do everything in their power to minimize its influence. When I was an undergrad, for instance (in a suburb dominated by a college, at the outskirts of a major city), the on-campus housing was gerrymandered into five different districts, so the students couldn’t be a voting bloc on certain issues. And in grad school (in a town where the students were by themselves a third of the population), to read the local newspaper, you’d never even know that there was a university in town. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/428 "2019-05-22T23:43:58Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > On the city council of South Bend, five of six district representatives are Democrats as are all three at-large representatives. And they haven’t voted for a Republican mayor in nearly fifty years. People who think it’s impressive that Pete “won in Indiana” simply don’t understand what the real deal is. ---
**Author:** ![betonbill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b782af/32.png) [@betonbill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betonbill)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2019, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/429 "2019-05-23T00:21:00Z")
While I can’t see Mayor Pete making it all the way to the nomination process for president, I think he is a very interesting and different sort of candidate, and I intend to enjoy him while I can. I know he’s supposedly “not gay enough,” but I think he’s the kind of person to test the political waters mainly because he does not appear at all threatening. I think he will be a person to reckon on for the future. Plus, I’m really looking forward to see how he does in the debates. I think he will make them very interesting. As for Beto, I really, really wanted to be far more excited than I am. Personally, I think he should go back to Texas and then run for senator again. Getting rid of Cornyn (sp?) would be a wonderful thing to do. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2019, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/430 "2019-05-23T02:47:30Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > And [South Bend] haven’t voted for a Republican mayor in nearly fifty years. People who think it’s impressive that Pete “won in Indiana” simply don’t understand what the real deal is. Same goes for people who are impressed that Beto got elected to the House from Texas. It’s been _over_ 50 yaers since [Texas 16th Congressional District](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%27s_16th_congressional_district) voted for a Republican. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2019, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/431 "2019-05-23T07:50:17Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > Same goes for people who are impressed that Beto got elected to the House from Texas. It’s been _over_ 50 yaers since [Texas 16th Congressional District](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%27s_16th_congressional_district) voted for a Republican. I haven’t heard anyone be impressed with his House election (other than beating an incumbent in the primary, which is pretty good whether it’s AOC or Beto who does it). They are impressed by his losing a Texas election for U.S. Senate by only two and a half points. The margins for the other Senate elections in Texas over the past twenty years: 2014: R+27 2012: R+16 2008: R+12 2006: R+26 2002: R+12 So two and a half points is amazing by comparison. But wait, you say. 2018 was a different kind of year. Texas has been changing demographically, and nationally this was a “blue year”. Okay. So how come the Republican candidate for governor won his race by 13 points? Both Beto and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lupe Valdez were on the same ballot. (And that name suggests to me that you can’t mark Beto’s good showing up to Hispanic turnout.) Both races garnered about eight million votes total. The difference was that at least a half million Texans refused to vote for Valdez but voted for Beto. That’s **huge.** ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2019, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/432 "2019-05-23T09:33:35Z")
What - no mentions of Laura Ingraham christening [sic] Buttegieg “[Pope Pete](https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2019/05/20/laura-ingraham-mocks-pete-buttigiegs-christian-faith-after-his-fox-news-town-hall/223755)” after he called her and other FoxNews talking heads out for spreading divisive propaganda? [Stay classy, Laura](http://www.cc.com/video-clips/4o4kio/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-democratic-presidential-hopefuls-face-a-fox-news-dilemma). ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2019, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/433 "2019-05-23T14:36:23Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > … They are impressed by his losing a Texas election for U.S. Senate by only two and a half points. The margins for the other Senate elections in Texas over the past twenty years: > > 2014: R+27 > 2012: R+16 > 2008: R+12 > 2006: R+26 > 2002: R+12 > > So two and a half points is amazing by comparison. > > But wait, you say. 2018 was a different kind of year. Texas has been changing demographically, and nationally this was a “blue year”. Okay. So how come the Republican candidate for governor won his race by 13 points? Both Beto and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lupe Valdez were on the same ballot. … OK, I finally understand your argument and concur. However, I do wonder how much of Beto’s success is due to Beto’s positives vs. Ted Cruz’s negatives. I don’t live in Texas and I’d never even heard of Lupe Valdez till now, but I think I contributed to Beto because he was Ted Cruz’s opponent in the election. And I’m not alone in this because Beto raised [$79 million](https://votesmart.org/candidate/campaign-finance/78533/beto-orourke#.XOauDG43lrY) compared to $45 million by Ted Cruz. Lupe Valdez raised only [$2.0 million](https://votesmart.org/candidate/campaign-finance/177262/lupe-valdez#.XOat7m43lrY) while her opponent Gregg Abbott raised [$79 million](https://votesmart.org/candidate/campaign-finance/50168/gregory-abbott#.XOavRm43lrY). Assuming I’m interpreting these numbers correctly. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2019, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/434 "2019-05-23T21:51:37Z")
That’s definitely the one unknowable element. However, 538 has said Cruz’s approval ratings are high enough that this cannot be the only explanation. And Beto seems to do well in most national electability polls, so I think he really does have broad appeal. ETA: And ticket splitting is much less common than it used to be. It’s particularly uncommon for people who regularly vote Republican to cross over for a Democratic candidate. So this makes it even more impressive. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/435 "2019-06-23T09:25:44Z")
Bill Maher got a couple sick burns on Mayor Pete last night. “Are the American people ready to elect a gay teenager president?” “When Mayor Pete goes out knocking on doors, people don’t answer because they think he’s a Mormon.” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/436 "2019-06-23T10:27:03Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > “When Mayor Pete goes out knocking on doors, people don’t answer because they think he’s a Mormon.” Nah, not blonde enough. ---
**Author:** ![Boycott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boycott/32/6741_2.png) [@Boycott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boycott)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/437 "2019-06-23T11:48:47Z")
I admire that he talks about US Foreign Policy in a broader context. There is an absence of policy under Trump. He changes his mind and his course every week it seems but American foreign policy has been jumbled before him. I think John Kerry brought a semblance of strategy as Secretary of State in Obama’s second term but his first term seemed to be in confusion as they tried to clean up the mess of the militarism of Bush-Cheney but at the same time avoid comparisons with Carter as weak. ---
**Author:** ![UnwittingAmericans](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d9b06d/32.png) [@UnwittingAmericans](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UnwittingAmericans)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/438 "2019-06-23T12:02:02Z")
I’ve only seen 10 minutes total of snippets of him so far, but I like him. I haven’t heard him say “blah blah blah the American people blah blah blah” a single time yet. So right now he’s my #1 pick. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/439 "2019-06-23T13:48:56Z")
> [@UnwittingAmericans](#): > > I’ve only seen 10 minutes total of snippets of him so far, but I like him. I haven’t heard him say “blah blah blah the American people blah blah blah” a single time yet. So right now he’s my #1 pick. [Here ya go](https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=yfp-t-s&p=youtube+pete+announcing+president#id=1&vid=d0bd8f5c76964565ac7b6ee68624aff7&action=click) This is his announcement that he is running for presidency. The first few minutes are a little slow with many thanks to his supporters, but the man has a message. I will vote for anyone that can oust the criminal from the White House, I hope it can be him. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2019, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032/440 "2019-06-23T14:24:03Z")
He’s still my favorite. He’s having a little trouble in South Bend right now and I hope he can turn this situation around. For his sake but also for his city. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032.md?page=21) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-pete-buttigieg/831032.md?page=23)