Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg ( BOOT-ə-jəj; born January 19, 1982) is an American politician and former U.S. Navy intelligence officer who is Presid...
Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg ( BOOT-ə-jəj; born January 19, 1982) is an American politician and former U.S. Navy intelligence officer who is President Joe Biden's nominee for the position of United States Secretary of Transportation. He was the 32nd mayor of South Bend, Indiana, from 2012 to 2020, earning him the nickname "Mayor Pete".Buttigieg is a graduate of Harvard College and Oxford University, attending the latter on a Rhodes Scholarship. From 2009 to 2017, he was an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve, attaining the rank of lieutenant. He was mobilized and deployed to the War in Afghanistan for seven months in 2014. Before being elected as Mayor of South Bend in 2012, Buttigieg worked on the political campaigns of Democrats Jill Long Thompson, Joe Donnelly, and John Kerry. While serving as mayor, Buttigieg came out as gay in 2015. He married Chasten Glezman, a schoolteacher, writer, and LGBTQ rights advocate, in June 2018. Buttigieg declined to seek a third term as mayor.
Buttigieg ran as a candidate for president in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, launching his campaign for the 2020 United States presidential election on April 14, 2019. He became the first openly gay person to launch a major presidential campaign. Despite initially low expectations, he gained significant momentum in mid-2019 when he participated in several town halls and debates. Buttigieg narrowly won the Iowa caucuses and placed second in the New Hampshire primary. By winning Iowa, he became the first openly gay candidate to win a presidential primary or caucus. Buttigieg dropped out of the race on March 1, 2020, and endorsed Joe Biden the following day.In December 2020, President Biden named Buttigieg as his nominee to be Secretary of Transportation. He is the first openly gay Cabinet nominee in U.S. history.
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John Hickenlooper
John Wright Hickenlooper Jr. (; born February 7, 1952) is an American politician, businessman and geologist serving as the junior United States Senato...
John Wright Hickenlooper Jr. (; born February 7, 1952) is an American politician, businessman and geologist serving as the junior United States Senator from Colorado, having defeated incumbent Cory Gardner in 2020. A member of the Democratic Party, Hickenlooper was mayor of Denver from 2003 to 2011 and governor of Colorado from 2011 to 2019.
Born in Narberth, Pennsylvania, Hickenlooper is a graduate of Wesleyan University. After a career as a petroleum geologist, he co-founded the Wynkoop Brewing Company in Denver in 1988. Hickenlooper was elected the 43rd mayor of Denver in 2003, serving two terms. After incumbent governor Bill Ritter said that he would not seek reelection, Hickenlooper announced his intention to run for the Democratic nomination in January 2010. He won an uncontested primary and faced Constitution Party nominee Tom Tancredo and Republican Party nominee Dan Maes in the general election. Hickenlooper won with 51% of the vote and was reelected in 2014, defeating Republican Bob Beauprez.
As governor, he introduced universal background checks and banned high-capacity magazines in the wake of the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting. He expanded Medicaid under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, halving the rate of uninsured people in the state. Having initially opposed marijuana legalization, he has gradually come to support it.
He sought the Democratic nomination for president of the United States in 2019 but dropped out before primaries were held. He subsequently won the Democratic nomination to challenge Cory Gardner, the one-term Republican incumbent U.S. Senator from Colorado. He won the general election and assumed office on January 3, 2021. At 68, Hickenlooper became the oldest first-term senator to represent Colorado.
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