Pete Buttigieg’s donors are rallying for him to be Kamala Harris’ running mate

-

A close-knit group of donors to out Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign is rallying to get him on the Democratic presidential ticket with Vice President Kamala Harris.

The group of wealthy Democrats, many of them LGBTQ+, have been working behind the scenes since hours after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race to convince people close to Harris that Buttigieg would make a great VP, according to reporting in The New York Times.

Related

Pete Buttigieg used 1 word to tell 190,000 “white dudes” why to support Kamala Harris
The gay transportation secretary said it’s important to focus not on only on what Democrats stand against, but what they stand for.

And Buttigieg is open to the possibility.

Your LGBTQ+ guide to Election 2024

Stay ahead of the 2024 Election with our newsletter that covers candidates, issues, and perspectives that matter.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

A day after Biden’s exit, Buttigieg convened a Zoom meeting of past donors to talk about how they could help Harris’s candidacy, and, according to three participants, Buttigieg was candid about his interest in being veep.

The call set donors in motion, reaching out to contacts and singing Buttigieg’s praises.

The same group of benefactors, or “investors” as Buttigieg has called them, has been in close contact since he dropped out of the 2020 contest and endorsed Biden, sharing news and clips of the transportation secretary’s spirited defense of the current administration and withering takedowns of Trump.

Ten days into the veepstakes, Buttigieg’s name is still in the mix, even as other popular contenders from swing states, like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, have bowed out.

The Harris campaign has said it’s vetting Buttigieg for VP along with Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona.

Arizona and Pennsylvania, like Michigan, are crucial swing states in 2024.

Buttigieg has stayed connected to his donor network and joined some of them in December for a party at a private home in Georgetown that went until the wee hours, one “investor” shared.

On Friday, Buttigieg and some of those same donors helped raise over $4 million on the White Dudes for Harris Zoom call.

While his fundraising prowess would be an asset and his fans are some of the most enthusiastic in the Democratic party, a Buttigieg candidacy is a long shot, according to some of those same donors.

Susie Tompkins Buell, a Democratic fundraiser in San Francisco who gave money to both Buttigieg and Harris in 2020, says it would be “expecting a lot” for Harris to choose him.

“I mean, we’ve got to go bold,” she said. “It’s big to have a woman of color and a gay man. I think that would be ideal. That was my ideal team. But we also have to be realistic.”

While Buttigieg’s investors have their wallets open, the Harris campaign is already overflowing with cash—the campaign alone has raised over $200 million in just ten days.

Also, Buttigieg doesn’t have a swing state constituency that would help in the electoral college; he’s originally from Indiana, a solid red state, and he hasn’t been in Michigan, where his husband is from, long enough to claim the state as his own.

He also lacks an electoral history outside his time as mayor of South Bend or time in statewide or national office. His average support in the Democratic primary in 2020 peaked in national polls at around 10 percent. 

Lizanne Rosenstein, a Biden donor who hosted the president following his disastrous debate performance, was on Buttigieg’s Zoom call last week and said she’s supported both Buttigieg and Sen. Kelly of Arizona, making a $100,000 donation to Kelly and wife Gabby Giffords’ gun violence project in 2014.

“I am really excited about any of the supposed front-runners,” she said. “But I would be doing the happy dance if it were either of the two of them.”



source https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/07/pete-buttigiegs-donors-are-rallying-for-him-to-be-kamala-harris-running-mate/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prosecutors decline to charge suspect identified in alleged anti-trans mass shooting

-
Image
Prosecutors in Chicago have failed to charge a suspect identified in photo lineups as the shooter who killed a trans woman and her mother in a home invasion in January . Three other victims were wounded, including two other trans women. The suspect, who remains unidentified because he hasn’t been charged, has two other pending cases in Cook County court, records reveal: a felony residential burglary count and a misdemeanor count of domestic battery. The 19-year-old suspect lives in the same apartment complex as the victims did, on Chicago’s South Side. The police report for the mass shooting details how two people “kicked in the front door and began shooting” at about 1:40 p.m. on January 23. Unique Banks, 20, and her mother Alexsandra Olmo, 43, were killed at the scene. Three other victims were hospitalized in critical condition. One witness told investigators they had seen two males running north from the courtyard building wearing green camouflage. The shooting took place o...
Read more

Census Bureau will start testing new LGBTQ+ questions on its yearly survey

-
Image
The U.S. Census Bureau, after nearly a year of pushing the Biden administration, will begin testing questions pertaining to LGBTQ+ identity on its American Community Survey (ACS). These questions would ask people about their sexual orientation and gender identity. The Bureau put out a Federal Register notice signifying that this is the last chance for the public to give comment on all pending ACS questions, including those pertaining to LGBTQ+ individuals. The deadline given for comment is May 30, with an online form provided for any feedback on these questions. The wording for these questions can be found on the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website . After the Bureau’s deadline, it will be submitting the questions to the Office of Management and Budget, where they will await approval for testing in the summer. The ACS asks questions about demographic, socioeconomic, and housing-related topics annually. New questions must undergo a rigorous approval and testing p...
Read more

Conservatives are outraged over fake AI images of Target’s Satanic offerings

-
Image
Conservatives were already upset about Target over its LGBTQ+-inclusive Pride collection. But now they’re angry over fake AI-generated images that show the store selling “Satanic” clothing. The images show kids wearing clothes with inverted pentagrams and goat heads and a store display with a red, goat-headed mannequin. The images were created by Facebook user Dan Reese with the AI program Midjourney, Reuters reported . A Target spokesperson told the publication that it “has never sold” the pictured items, and the items aren’t available on the store’s website. Related Stories Brave gay man yells “Praise Satan” & throws Bible in fire at pastor’s book-burning The husbands kissed as congregants screamed in disgust. “That guy has balls of steel,” one commenter wrote under the video. A Facebook page called Christian Patriots posted the images and wrote , “Look at the faces on these children, I feel in my spirit, they even knew there was something satanic with making t...
Read more