South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg announced an exploratory committee for a Presidential run in a video posted online Wednesday morning.
Buttigieg has been making moves toward a presidential run for a while now. He made a failed run for DNC chair in 2017, declared last month he wouldn’t run for a third term as mayor and has written a campaign book set to come out February 12.
In the video paid for by his new ‘Pete for America Exploratory Committee’ Buttigieg says America needs a fresh start.
“The reality is there’s no going back and there’s no such thing as again in the real world. We can’t look for greatness in the past.”
Buttigieg is a South Bend native, an industrial city of 100 thousand just over the state line in Northern Indiana. He has been mayor since 2012. He is the youngest person to announce a potential bid for president at 37.
No candidate has jumped straight from mayor to president and few outside of South Bend, or political circles know who he is, but Buttigieg was named by former President Barack Obama as a person to watch in the Democratic Party.
He is a Rhodes Scholar and a Navy veteran who served a tour of duty in Afghanistan. He lives in South Bend with his husband, Chasten, and their two dogs.