ABC News reports:
Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old, two-term Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, took a significant step toward a run for the White House on Wednesday, announcing that he is forming a presidential exploratory committee, the precursor to an official campaign.
He was commissioned as a Navy intelligence officer in 2009 and in 2013, while serving as mayor, he was deployed to Afghanistan for seven months. A graduate of Harvard University and Oxford, Buttigieg is also the first openly-gay executive in Indiana history.
Buttigieg (whose name is of Maltese origin and pronounced “boot-edge-edge”) made the announcement in a video posted to his social media accounts. He came out publicly in a 2015 essay in the South Bend Tribune, less than two weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage nationally in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges.
I launched a presidential exploratory committee because it is a season for boldness and it is time to focus on the future. Are you ready to walk away from the politics of the past?
Join the team at https://t.co/Xlqn10brgH. pic.twitter.com/K6aeOeVrO7
— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) January 23, 2019