Pete Buttigieg, the openly gay mayor of
South Bend, Indiana, on Sunday made his 2020 presidential campaign
official.
“I'm here to join you to make a
little news,” Buttigieg told a crowd of adoring supporters in South
Bend. “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.”
The crowd applauded, chanted “U-S-A!
U-S-A! U-S-A!” and waved American flags.
In January, Buttigieg announced he had
formed an exploratory committee for a possible White House run.
Without mentioning President Donald
Trump's name, Buttigieg targeted the president's “Make America
Great Again” slogan.
“[T]here is a myth being sold to
industrial and rural communities: the myth that we can stop the clock
and turn it back,” Buttigieg said. “It comes from people who
think the only way to reach communities like ours is through
resentment and nostalgia, selling an impossible promise of returning
to a bygone era that was never as great as advertised to begin with.
The problem is, they’re telling us to look for greatness in all the
wrong places.”
Buttigieg's announcement comes on the
heels of two polls showing him in third place behind former Vice
President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for the
Democratic presidential nomination.
Annise Parker, the CEO of the LGBTQ
Victory Fund, called Buttigieg's rise in the polls “meteoric.”
“There are enormous minefields and
hurdles to running as an openly LGBTQ candidate, and so far, Mayor
Pete has gracefully leaped over them on the world's largest political
stage. He's the real deal,” she told the
Washington
Blade.
Buttigieg's husband, Chasten, joined
him on the stage after he concluded his speech. The couple shared a
quick smooch and an embrace as the crowd cheered.