Pete Buttigieg announced he is in the running for being the new president of the United States. If he is chosen by the Democrats, he will be the first LGBT candidate in history!
So how about learning a little bit more about his life and career?
- His full name is Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg
- He was born January 19, 1982
- He is an American politician and former Naval Intelligence Officer
- Who has served as the mayor of the city of South Bend, Indiana since 2012
- Pete Buttigieg is a graduate of Harvard University and Oxford University
- Having attended Pembroke College, Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship
- From 2007 to 2010 he worked at McKinsey and Company
- A management strategy consulting firm
- Pete Buttigieg served as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve from 2009 to 2017
- Attaining the rank of lieutenant
- And deploying for the War in Afghanistan in 2014
- Pete Buttigieg was first elected mayor of South Bend in 2011
- And was reelected in 2015
- During his time as mayor of South Bend, Buttigieg’s policies were widely credited with spurring economic growth and business investment
- In 2013 he won GovFresh’s Mayor of the Year award
- Pete Buttigieg also campaigned for Indiana State Treasurer in 2010
- And for chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2017
- In January 2019, Pete Buttigieg announced that he was forming an exploratory committee for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2020
- He formally launched his campaign on April 14, 2019
- He is the first openly gay Democratic candidate for president
- His platform includes support for the following
- Universal healthcare
- Environmentalism
- Abolition of the death penalty
- dialogue and cooperation between the Democratic Party and organized labor
- Universal background checks for firearms purchases
- Federal legislation that would ban job discrimination against LGBT people
- The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for children of immigrants
- And tackling wealth inequality
- He was born to Jennifer Anne and Joseph Buttigieg
- His father, an immigrant from Hamrun, Malta
- Initially studied to be a Jesuit priest before immigrating to the United States
- And embarking on a secular career as professor of literature at The University of Notre Dame at South Bend
- The surname Buttigieg is Semitic
- With “tigieg” meaning “poultry” in the language
- His mother was from a military family in Southern Illinois
- She lived in Texas and elsewhere while growing up
- She earned a Master of Fine Arts from Notre Dame
- And worked as a teacher at the National Cathedral School
- Before becoming a professor at Notre Dame for 29 years
- Of Methodist background, she identifies as an Episcopalian
- Pete Buttigieg is an only child
- Pete Buttigieg was named a 2014 Aspen Institute Rodel Fellow
- He was named a recipient of the John F. Kennedy New Frontier Fenn Award in 2015
- Pete Buttigieg is a devout Christian
- And has said his faith has been a strong influence on him
- Although he was baptized a Roman Catholic as an infant in deference to his strongly religious Maltese relatives, and sent to Catholic schools, his parents were infrequent churchgoers
- While at Oxford, Buttigieg began to attend Christ Church
- A member of the Episcopal Church, Pete Buttigieg is a congregant at the Cathedral of St. James in downtown South Bend
- Pete Buttigieg is a polyglot
- He taught himself to speak Norwegian
- He is also conversational in Spanish, Italian, Maltese, Arabic, Farsi, and French
- Pete Buttigieg plays guitar and piano
- And in 2013 performed with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra as a guest piano soloist
- In a June 2015 essay in the South Bend Tribune, Pete Buttigieg announced that he is gay
- He is the first openly gay municipal executive in Indiana
- In December 2017, pete Buttigieg announced his engagement to Chasten Glezman
- A junior high school teacher whom Buttigieg had been dating since August 2015 after meeting on the dating app Hinge
- They were married on June 16, 2018, in a private ceremony at the Cathedral of St. James
- They live in the same South Bend neighborhood
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