Hoosier Democrats long for a Pete Buttigieg VP, but recognize they might not get it
Kayla Dwyer, Indianapolis Star
Updated Mon, August 5, 2024
There’s a new energy afoot among Indiana Democratic party faithfuls, and it’s entirely due to Vice President Kamala Harris’ whirlwind presidential bid ― with the added bonus of a Hoosier in the running for her No. 2.
So much so, that those gathered in French Lick over the weekend for the annual Indiana Democratic Editorial Association convention didn’t seem overly concerned with who Harris might choose as her running mate in a matter of hours or days, even if it’s not their sentimental favorite, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Her impending decision is merely a subject of excited speculation; delegates there appeared to be along for the ride, regardless.
From USA Today: Who's up? Who's down? Harris' VP options in limbo ahead of imminent decision
“There’s not one person on her list I wouldn’t like,” said Vanderburgh County Democratic Chair Cheryl Schultz, who will be voting on Harris’ pick as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention later this month.
Buttigieg is on the vice-president-hopeful shortlist, as are Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly. Schultz believes Buttigieg has the best shot, because of his existing relationship with Harris as transportation secretary, and because he’s proven adept at defending the party line on various platforms, including conservative outlets like Fox News. Buttigieg held a fundraiser for Harris Saturday in New Hampshire; Beshear and Walz also have fundraisers scheduled Monday.
Harris is expected to make her decision by Tuesday.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg answers questions from reporters Friday, Aug. 2, 2024, at Ivy Tech Community College in Kokomo, Indiana.
Other Hoosier Democrats say that Buttigieg, much as they would love to see him prevail, may not be the most strategic choice for the ticket.
“My heart wants Pete,” said Veronica Pejril, a delegate from Putnam County. “My brain tells me it’s probably going to be Shapiro.”
They say this due to the electoral math: Shapiro, from a swing state like Pennsylvania, would deliver votes that 8th Congressional District party chair Dave Crooks compares to “gold at Fort Knox.” It nearly pains Crooks to admit it ― he’s such a Buttigieg fan that he was one of about 18,000 Hoosiers who still voted for him for president in 2020, even though Buttigieg had dropped out of the race.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro speaks during a campaign rally for Vice President Kamala Harris on July 29, 2024 in Ambler, Pennsylvania.
It might help, too, to choose someone not so closely affiliated with the Biden administration ― an outsider, said Vigo County Democratic Chair Joseph Etling.
Derek Camp, a delegate and the Allen County party chair, said he thinks Buttigieg and Walz each have a good chance ― Walz because of his folksy disposition.
“He’s your favorite Midwest grandpa who’s just fun to hang out with,” Camp said.
Of greater import to convention attendees is the shot in the arm Harris’ campaign has injected down-ballot. In the week after her campaign launch, Camp said he fielded calls from about 30 precinct directors in his district asking for door-knocking lists. Among the statehouse races that the Indiana House Democratic Caucus tracks, field director Seth Rawlings said there was a roughly 30% increase in the amount of doors they knocked on and an average 20% increase in donations to their candidates.
Rawlings, a 23-year-old Muncie resident, signed up to be a delegate the day of President Joe Biden’s infamously poor debate performance that changed the tune among Democrats. Tensions were high when it was unclear whether Democrats might have a contested convention.
“When I first signed up for this, I thought we were marching toward battle,” Rawlings said. “Now it feels like it’s going to be more of a party.”
The mood Saturday, especially at a dinner event where former Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan gave a keynote address, was ebullient ― far more spirited than the defeatist mood many Indiana Democrats have grown used to in a state where they’ve been out of power at the Statehouse for more than a decade.
Former U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio gives the keynote address at a dinner reception during the Indiana Democratic Editorial Association convention Saturday, Aug. 4 in French Lick, Indiana.
Ryan spent some of his time revving up the audience over a different vice-presidential pick: JD Vance, Republican nominee Donald Trump’s running mate and the Ohio senator who won the seat over Ryan in 2022. He decried Vance’s support for a national abortion ban, and said Trump’s selection of him is a doubling down on Project 2025, a playbook of conservative policies that the Heritage Foundation crafted in the event Trump is elected.
“We’re not going to allow them to hijack the political debate in this country,” Ryan said. “It’s time to move on. It’s time to heal.”
In an interview with IndyStar afterward, Ryan said he didn’t have strong feelings about who Harris should pick to run by her side.
“I almost don’t even care,” he said. “It’s like, just pick and let’s go.”
That’s not far from the sentiment among Indiana party loyalists, like Schultz of Vanderburgh County.
Vanderburgh County Democratic Party Chair Cheryl Schultz, left, and Veronica Pejril, a candidate for state Senate from Putnam County, are both delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later this month. Kayla Dwyer/IndyStar
“We’re just going to be happy with whatever,” she said. “I think there are no bad choices.”
“There’ll be cheering all around,” Pejril added.
Contact IndyStar state government and politics reporter Kayla Dwyer at kdwyer@indystar.com or follow her on Twitter @kayla_dwyer17.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Veepstakes: Indiana Democrats love Buttigieg, but 'there are no bad choices'
Democratic politicians’ husbands rake in record haul during New York event
Edward Helmore
Sat, August 3, 2024
Pete Buttigieg at the White House on Tuesday.Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP
While Kamala Harris cleared her campaign diary this weekend to finalize her choice of running mate ahead of a swing-state presidential campaign blitz next week, political spouses were hard at work.
The vice-president’s husband, Doug Emhoff, and Chasten Buttigieg, husband of the US transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg – a potential running mate for Harris at the top of November’s Democratic ticket whose candidacy has been strengthening in recent days – were on New York’s Fire Island on Friday for a sold-out event that raised $321,000.
According to reports, the total was a record for the Pines, part of the narrow barrier island that runs south of Long Island, famous as an LGBTQ+ summering spot second only to Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Related: Who is Tim Walz, the governor who could be Harris’s vice-presidential pick?
Former treasurer of the Democratic National Committee Andrew Tobias told Vanity Fair that the double-teaming husbands had beat the $200,000 haul for a 2016 political event hosted by the singer Cher.
The outlet reported that US Secret Service agents “appeared to waylay hunks in bikini cut swimsuits to smuggle Emhoff on and off the island”. The fundraiser had initially been organized for Harris and Joe Biden before the president quit his re-election campaign – and it had sold out before the vice-president had become the candidate.
“The right to love who you want to love, the right to marry who you want to marry, to do what you want in your home, with who you love, without the government over your shoulder … this affects all of you,” Emhoff told the crowd, echoing fears that a US supreme court with three Trump appointees could eliminate same-sex couples’ right to marriage. “We need to have an army for freedom, an army for justice, led by my wife, Kamala Harris.”
The Emhoff-Buttigieg husband double act raised speculation that it could be a test run for the transportation secretary to be Harris’s vice-presidential pick. Harris has until Tuesday to decide whom to pick as her running mate.
Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, whom many consider as the leading candidate to be Harris’s running mate, may help with his crucial swing state. But he could also bleed votes away from Harris elsewhere over his strong support of Israel’s war on Gaza, which became a constant source of criticism for the Biden White House.
“Of course I want it to be Pete,” fundraiser Jack Kabin said. But Kabin said he was worried “America isn’t ready for a gay vice-president”.
Rumors of Buttigieg’s strengthening contention in the veepstakes come amid a media blitz. He is estimated to have made at least 30 media appearances, trips to two swing states and held a Washington news conference in the past two weeks. In recent days, he acknowledged that he is “probably” being vetted.
In Buttigieg’s favor is his ability as a calm, skilled communicator. He is a Rhodes scholar and a veteran, previously served as a mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and he has emerged as formidable critic of Trump and the Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance.
Buttigieg frequently appears on Fox News. Recently, he went on the Republican-friendly network and criticized Trump supporters for fostering a “warped reality” in which the former president is “perfectly fine … even though he’s rambling about electrocuting sharks”.
Asked why he was so frequently on the outlet, Buttigieg told Bill Maher in July that it was not his job to speak only to people that agreed with him.
Asked why wealthy men, including gay tech investor Peter Thiel, supported Trump, he said the issues had been made “way too complicated”.
“It’s super simple,” he said. “These are very rich men who have decided to back the Republican party that tends to do good things for very rich men.”
On CNN, he called Vance “a regrettable choice” because he is “somebody who was at his most convincing and effective when he talked about how unfit for office Donald Trump is, and he has not explained any reason, other than of course his obvious interest in power, why he would have changed his mind on that”.
In Esquire magazine, columnist, actor and former White House engagement adviser Kal Penn wrote that Buttigieg is the Democratic party’s “best chance for expanding the electorate and evolving the platform”.
“He’s multilingual,” Penn wrote. “He’s comfortable on the world stage. He is deeply connected to blue-collar voters. He polls exceptionally well.
“Most important, as a young husband and father of two with a modest home in northern Michigan, he speaks openly about his own family’s struggles and triumphs, which mirror what many Americans deal with day to day.”
Edward Helmore
Sat, August 3, 2024
Pete Buttigieg at the White House on Tuesday.Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP
While Kamala Harris cleared her campaign diary this weekend to finalize her choice of running mate ahead of a swing-state presidential campaign blitz next week, political spouses were hard at work.
The vice-president’s husband, Doug Emhoff, and Chasten Buttigieg, husband of the US transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg – a potential running mate for Harris at the top of November’s Democratic ticket whose candidacy has been strengthening in recent days – were on New York’s Fire Island on Friday for a sold-out event that raised $321,000.
According to reports, the total was a record for the Pines, part of the narrow barrier island that runs south of Long Island, famous as an LGBTQ+ summering spot second only to Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Related: Who is Tim Walz, the governor who could be Harris’s vice-presidential pick?
Former treasurer of the Democratic National Committee Andrew Tobias told Vanity Fair that the double-teaming husbands had beat the $200,000 haul for a 2016 political event hosted by the singer Cher.
The outlet reported that US Secret Service agents “appeared to waylay hunks in bikini cut swimsuits to smuggle Emhoff on and off the island”. The fundraiser had initially been organized for Harris and Joe Biden before the president quit his re-election campaign – and it had sold out before the vice-president had become the candidate.
“The right to love who you want to love, the right to marry who you want to marry, to do what you want in your home, with who you love, without the government over your shoulder … this affects all of you,” Emhoff told the crowd, echoing fears that a US supreme court with three Trump appointees could eliminate same-sex couples’ right to marriage. “We need to have an army for freedom, an army for justice, led by my wife, Kamala Harris.”
The Emhoff-Buttigieg husband double act raised speculation that it could be a test run for the transportation secretary to be Harris’s vice-presidential pick. Harris has until Tuesday to decide whom to pick as her running mate.
Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, whom many consider as the leading candidate to be Harris’s running mate, may help with his crucial swing state. But he could also bleed votes away from Harris elsewhere over his strong support of Israel’s war on Gaza, which became a constant source of criticism for the Biden White House.
“Of course I want it to be Pete,” fundraiser Jack Kabin said. But Kabin said he was worried “America isn’t ready for a gay vice-president”.
Rumors of Buttigieg’s strengthening contention in the veepstakes come amid a media blitz. He is estimated to have made at least 30 media appearances, trips to two swing states and held a Washington news conference in the past two weeks. In recent days, he acknowledged that he is “probably” being vetted.
In Buttigieg’s favor is his ability as a calm, skilled communicator. He is a Rhodes scholar and a veteran, previously served as a mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and he has emerged as formidable critic of Trump and the Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance.
Buttigieg frequently appears on Fox News. Recently, he went on the Republican-friendly network and criticized Trump supporters for fostering a “warped reality” in which the former president is “perfectly fine … even though he’s rambling about electrocuting sharks”.
Asked why he was so frequently on the outlet, Buttigieg told Bill Maher in July that it was not his job to speak only to people that agreed with him.
Asked why wealthy men, including gay tech investor Peter Thiel, supported Trump, he said the issues had been made “way too complicated”.
“It’s super simple,” he said. “These are very rich men who have decided to back the Republican party that tends to do good things for very rich men.”
On CNN, he called Vance “a regrettable choice” because he is “somebody who was at his most convincing and effective when he talked about how unfit for office Donald Trump is, and he has not explained any reason, other than of course his obvious interest in power, why he would have changed his mind on that”.
In Esquire magazine, columnist, actor and former White House engagement adviser Kal Penn wrote that Buttigieg is the Democratic party’s “best chance for expanding the electorate and evolving the platform”.
“He’s multilingual,” Penn wrote. “He’s comfortable on the world stage. He is deeply connected to blue-collar voters. He polls exceptionally well.
“Most important, as a young husband and father of two with a modest home in northern Michigan, he speaks openly about his own family’s struggles and triumphs, which mirror what many Americans deal with day to day.”
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