Presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg met his husband Chasten on a dating app
Buttigieg spoke to CNN's Van Jones about how he met his husband and why Chasten is "one of the best things" he has going for him
Ever the millennial candidate, Mayor Pete Buttigieg has revealed that he met his husband Chasten on a dating app.
Buttigieg, currently a rising star among the Democratic hopefuls for the 2020 nomination, discussed how he met Chasten during an interview with CNN’s Van Jones over the weekend.
It wasn’t Grindr or Scruff that brought the men together, but rather Hinge, a dating app that describes itself as being for those who “want to get off dating apps.”
“I met him through this app called Hinge,” Buttigieg told Jones. “As soon as I saw his picture, I saw something in his eyes. I said ‘I gotta meet this guy.’ And then I did.”
Buttigieg said it was Chasten’s “really quick wit” that attracted him, and called their relationship akin to a marathon.
“I was trying to keep up with him, and what I found was that I’m still trying to keep up with him in a lot of ways,” Buttigieg said.
Of being a political spouse, Buttigieg said that his husband, a teacher and theater education advocate, is “pretty good at rolling with it.”
He continued: “I’m lucky for that. Frankly, he’s one of the best things I’ve got going for me. I love him. He’s grounded. He keeps me grounded.”
Buttigieg likened Chasten’s attitude to the 2020 campaign to his verve during Buttigieg’s run for Mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
“He was really alive to the ways that we could use our abilities to help people, to make people feel better just by showing up at their event,” Pete says. “He’s taken that same attitude on the trail. He definitely got more than he bargained for.”
Buttigieg revealed this week that his campaign has raised more than $7 million in the first quarter of 2019, calling it a “big number for us.”
“We are not part of the national political machine,” he wrote in an email to supporters. “We started with just about 20,000 people on our email list, and not many people even knew who I was.”
Buttigieg has also surged to third place behind former Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in a recent poll of Iowa primary voters.
And last month, the candidate waded into the Chick-fil-A anti-LGBTQ controversy by saying that he does “not approve of their politics, but I kind of approve of their chicken.”
After news broke that Chick-fil-A is still donating millions of dollars to anti-LGBTQ organizations, Buttigieg said that he wants to act as a peacemaker between the fast food chain and the LGBTQ community.
“Maybe, if nothing else, I can build that bridge,” Buttigieg told New York radio show The Breakfast Club. “Maybe I’ll become in a position to broker that peace deal.”
In a potential boost for Buttigieg’s candidacy, a new poll has also revealed that a majority of Americans are comfortable with or enthusiastic about a gay or lesbian president.
Watch part of Buttigieg’s CNN interview below:
Support Metro Weekly’s Journalism
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!
