A Midwestern mayor has announced he won’t seek a third term, shifting speculation he’s considering running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination into overdrive.
Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Ind., told reporters Monday he won’t launch a re-election bid next year, but he remained mum on whether he would campaign for president instead. He indicated an official decision regarding his political future wouldn’t come before January.
“I know now that the time has come for me to prepare the city for new leadership again,” Buttigieg said, according to local media reports. “I don’t think it’s a secret that we’re looking at things, and we’ll continue to do so going into the new year.”
Buttigieg, 36, is a married gay man who served in Afghanistan in 2014 as a Naval Reserve officer. The Harvard University-educated Rhodes Scholar, who won his first term in 2011 when he was only 29, received attention last year when he unsuccessfully contested the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee. A former McKinsey & Company consultant, Buttigieg has been generally lauded for revitalizing the city of South Bend, which suffered during the economic downturn.
Buttigieg is scheduled to appear at a political event in Iowa on Saturday. He is expected to tour the country from February to promote his forthcoming memoir, “Shortest Way Home.”