Could Pete Buttigieg become the US’s first LGBTQ+ president? 5 things to know about the openly gay Democratic candidate
At 38, the former Indiana mayor is the US’s youngest presidential candidate, and has got everyone asking: ‘Who is Pete Buttigieg?’
“Who is Pete Buttigieg?” That’s the question everyone is asking after Pete Buttigieg’s meteoric rise to become one of the front runners among the Democratic presidential candidates, and oppose US President Donald Trump. In case you’re wondering, his surname is pronounced “Boot-edge-edge”.
The 38-year-old, who has positioned himself as a moderate, has gone head-to-head with his more established rivals, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden.
He narrowly won the pledged delegate count in the Iowa caucuses and tied the pledged delegate count in the New Hampshire primary.
He is a former Indiana mayor
Born and bred in the small town of South Bend, Indiana, Buttigieg is a former Rhodes scholar who graduated from Harvard College and then Oxford University.
He worked as a consultant at McKinsey before heading home to South Bend, where he got elected as the town’s mayor in 2011, at the age of 29. After serving two terms, “Mayor Pete” – as he is affectionately known – left office on the first day of 2020 to focus on his presidential campaign.
He served as an intelligence officer