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Ex-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has responded to comments from former Vice President Kamala Harris, who admitted in her upcoming memoir that he was her first choice as running mate for the 2024 election — but wasn’t selected since he’s gay.
Harris, who ultimately picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her vice-presidential nominee, revealed in an excerpt published Wednesday from “107 Days” that Buttigieg topped her eight-person short list and “would have been an ideal partner — if I were a straight white male.”
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“But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man,” added Harris, per The Atlantic. “Part of me wanted to say, Screw it, let’s just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk.”
She continued, “And I think Pete also knew that — to our mutual sadness.”
Buttigieg responded to the confession Thursday ahead of a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Monroe County’s Democratic Party headquarters in Bloomington, Indiana. He said concerns over his sexual orientation were “not something that we ever talked about,” per Politico.
“My experience in politics has been that the way that you earn trust with voters is based mostly on what they think you’re going to do for their lives, not on categories,” continued Buttigieg, who said he was “surprised” to read that particular passage.
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“You just have to go to voters with what you think you can do for them,” he said Thursday. “Politics is about the results we can get for people and not about these other things.”
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Buttigieg reportedly added that he believes in “giving Americans more credit” in how they make voting decisions. Harris had mere months to win voters over as the Democratic nominee after then-President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed her in July 2024.
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The former prosecutor ultimately picked Walz as her running mate and lost the election to President Donald Trump. She reportedly recalled entering the “bargaining stages of grief” the very next morning and asking, “My God, my God, what will happen to our country?”