Pete Buttigieg

Pete Buttigieg is a relatively unknown presidential candidate in many ways. He has preformed well in debates but has not had any big break out moments. However, support for his campaign is steadily rising. So let’s take a quick look at him.

Buttigieg was born in 1982 in South Bend Indiana. He was quickly identified as someone with a lot of potential and won several awards including valedictorian. Upon graduating high-school, he attended and graduated with honors from Harvard with a major in history and literature. After this, he went on to study at Oxford where he received another degree with honors in philosophy, politics, and economics. The next several years he spent working in various roles on campaigns of several people including John Kerry and Barack Obama. While working for Obama, he decided to join the Navy and became a reserve officer.

In 2011, he decided to run for mayor of South Bend and served two terms in this role. During 2014, he had to take a 7 month leave of absence to go and serve in an active military role in Afghanistan (during which he was awarded Joint Service Commendation Medal and the Joint Meritorious Unit Award). Not a lot happened during his mayor terms either good or bad. He decided not to seek reelection in 2019 and proceeded to lay the ground work for his 2019/2020 presidential run.

If you would like to see where he stands on different political issues, go take a look at this article and see what you think. https://www.politico.com/2020-election/candidates-views-on-the-issues/pete-buttigieg/

Now, will he be able to beat Trump? Honestly, it is a toss up. He has a lot of fairly radical/liberal beliefs that he supports that would alienate a large swath of independent voters that he needs in order to win. However, he does carry himself in a way that would appeal to people tired of Trump’s brash and frustrating way of handling himself. So, he would have appeal to people who are undecided, but I am not sure if he would be able to get those votes due to his policies and beliefs. However, as with most of the Democratic candidates, he will struggle to succeed in primaries and most likely will withdraw in a few months. I would look for him to be someone’s chief of staff or even a vice-president pick for whoever wins the Democratic Primary.