America's Mayor

Voters outside Indiana can’t find South Bend on a map. But Pete Buttigieg says he has the executive experience the nation needs

- Jason Lemon

PETE BUTTIGIEG WANTS TO BE America’s first millennial president. At 37, the Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is also the first openly gay person to launch a bid for the nation’s highest office.

While some may argue that going from leading a city of roughly 100,000 residents to governing the world’s most powerful country may be a leap, Buttigieg (pronounced Boot-edge-edge) believes small-town politics and putting the American people first are exactly what a divided Washington needs. And as he puts it, he already has “more experience in government” than President Donald Trump and “more executive experience” than Vice President Mike Pence.

A graduate of Harvard College, Buttigieg went on to study at Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar, then worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co. He entered politics in 2010, and his first bid, to become Indiana’s State Treasurer, proved unsuccessful. Political ambition undiminished, he set his sights on becoming the mayor of his hometown. This time he prevailed, winning with 74 percent of voters in 2012.

Even if you question Buttigieg’s presidential qualifications, you can’t dispute his millennial credentials. The cord-cutting mayor says he opts for streaming Netflix over watching cable with his partner, Chasten Glezman, a high school teacher (they married last summer). Other skills, like his ability to play the didgeridoo, an indigenous Australian instrument, or to order a sandwich in seven languages, are harder to quantify— through the latter gift would surely come in handy as a world leader.

Among the languages he knows are Arabic and Dari Persian, the latter of which Buttigieg picked up before serving for seven months in Afghanistan as a Navy Reserve lieutenant. That stint, he points out, would give him more military experience than any president since George H.W. Bush.