The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, officially announced his 2020 presidential campaign in April 2019 during a rally in his hometown.
Buttigieg made the announcement before a standing-room-only crowd at a downtown tech hub that was once a Studebaker car factory.
“My name is Pete Buttigieg. They call me Mayor Pete. I am a proud son of South Bend, Indiana, and I am running for President of the United States,” Buttigieg said as crowds erupted in applause.
Here are something things to know about Buttigieg:
- Buttigieg was born Jan. 19, 1982, in South Bend. His father was a first-generation immigrant from Malta and his mother was a fifth-generation Hoosier.
- Buttigieg was a Rhodes Scholar and studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University. He earned a bachelor's degree in history and literature from Harvard University.
- Buttigieg was elected mayor of South Bend in 2011, making him the youngest mayor of a U.S. city with at least 100,000 residents. During his announcement in April 2019, Buttigieg touted improvements under his leadership, including a revitalized downtown and decreased unemployment, and said he'll focus on three major issues in his campaign: security, improving democracy and freedom.
- In 2017, he ran for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, but was defeated.
- Buttigieg came out as gay in a 2015, writing in a column for the South Bend Tribune while he was running for his second term as the city's mayor. "We Midwesterners are instinctively private to begin with, and I'm not used to viewing this as anyone else's business," Buttigieg wrote. "But it's clear to me that at a moment like this, being more open about it could do some good. For a local student struggling with her sexuality, it might be helpful for an openly gay mayor to send the message that her community will always have a place for her."
- Buttigieg plays piano and guitar and has performed with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra.
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