Pete Buttigieg

Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg ( BOO-tij-əj; born January 19, 1982) is an American politician and former naval officer who served as the 19th United States secretary of transportation from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 32nd mayor of South Bend, Indiana, from 2012 to 2020.

Buttigieg is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Oxford, attending the latter on a Rhodes Scholarship. In 2007, he began three years of work at the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. From 2009 to 2017, he was an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve, attaining the rank of lieutenant. He was mobilized and deployed to the war in Afghanistan for seven months in 2014. Afterwards, he worked on the political campaigns of Democrats Jill Long Thompson, Joe Donnelly, and John Kerry, and was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for Indiana state treasurer in 2010. In 2011, he was elected mayor of South Bend. In 2015, Buttigieg was re-elected, coming out as gay earlier that year. He married Chasten Glezman, a schoolteacher and writer, in June 2018. Buttigieg declined to seek a third term as mayor.

In April 2019, Buttigieg announced a 2020 presidential campaign, making him the first openly gay man to launch a Democratic presidential campaign. During the Democratic Party primaries, he gained significant momentum in mid-2019 after several town hall meetings and television debates. Buttigieg narrowly won the Iowa caucuses while placing second in the popular vote, and placed a close second in the New Hampshire primary. By winning Iowa, he became the first openly gay candidate to win a presidential primary or caucus. Buttigieg dropped out of the race on March 1, 2020, and endorsed Joe Biden the following day.

After Biden won the 2020 presidential election, he named Buttigieg as his nominee for Secretary of Transportation in December 2020. His nomination was confirmed on February 2, 2021, by a vote of 86–13, making him the first openly gay Cabinet secretary in U.S. history. Nominated at age 38, he was also the youngest Cabinet member in the Biden administration and the youngest person ever to serve as Secretary of Transportation. After Biden withdrew his re-election campaign in 2024, Buttigieg was considered as a potential running mate for Kamala Harris, though he was ultimately not selected.