Last night, Pete Buttigieg announced that he was ending his candidacy to become the Democratic nominee for the 2020 US presidential election. The news follows strong performances in both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, but his results in Nevada and South Carolina showed that he ultimately failed to form the diverse coalition of voters needed to maintain sufficient momentum. While mainstream political analysts will highlight his low favorability among Black and Latinx voters, many will gloss over his patchy support among a community that he himself is a part of – the LGBTQ community.
At a private fundraiser held for Buttigieg in San Francisco in mid-February, a group called Queers Against Pete disrupted his speech to demonstrate their disapproval of his campaign. This marked the second protest organized by the group, following an interruption of a fundraiser held in Chicago and an online letter denouncing the candidate circulating with thousands of signatures. As the activists were swiftly escorted out of the auditorium, Buttigieg sharply quipped, "I respect your activism, but this is a gathering for supporters of our campaign and I just got a question about my husband and I’m really excited to answer it" – the audience erupted with cheers.
At face value, it seemed strange that a queer-led activist group would protest against the first openly gay candidate to mount a major campaign to become the Democratic nominee in a presidential election. The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana quickly garnered the fixation of the mainstream media, who almost immediately deemed his campaign a significant landmark in recent American political history. His run stoked up the inevitable question whenever a candidate with a non-normative identity runs to become president: "Is America really ready for a gay president?"
