by Anna Witters
Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana has launched a 2020 exploratory committee.
According to Wikipedia, this is an organization established to help determine whether a potential candidate should run for an elected office. He is part of the Democratic Party.
Buttigieg is a native of South Bend. Both of his parents are professors at The University of Notre Dame. Buttigieg graduated from South Bend Saint Joseph High School, where he was valedictorian, as well as president of his senior class.
Buttigieg graduated from Harvard in 2004, and then received a Master’s degree in philosophy, politics, and economics from The University of Oxford. He was named a Rhodes Scholar.
According to Wikipedia, after college he “was commissioned as a Naval intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve in 2009, and deployed to Afghanistan in 2014. After a seven-month deployment, Buttigieg returned to South Bend. He remains a lieutenant in the Naval Reserve.”
Buttigieg was elected mayor of South Bend on November 8th, 2011, taking 74% of the vote. At age 29, he was the youngest mayor of a U.S. city with over 100,000 residents.
On Sunday, March 10, Buttigieg was on CNN’s Town Hall where he answered questions from citizens. He argued that he has more years of government experience than President Trump, more executive credentials than former Indiana governor Mike Pence, and that his young age puts him at a different perspective then other candidates.
In reply to the concerns about never holding an office bigger than city mayor, Buttegieg says "I've never believed in running for office so you can eventually run for some other office. Especially not this office."
After the show on CNN, he received more than $1,00,000 in campaign donations, which will earn him a spot in the Democratic debates scheduled to begin in June.
If elected, Buttigieg would be the first openly gay president, as well as the youngest president. He would also be the only mayor to ascend directly to the presidency.
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