Vice President Kamala Harris/Secretary Pete Buttigieg Photo: Jovanny Hernandez / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel//Cody Scanlan/Holland Sentinel//USA TODAY NETWORK
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.
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And Buttigieg is open to the possibility.
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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.”
