I care deeply about who Michigan will elect as Governor and send to the U.S. Senate next year, but I have decided against competing in either race.
I wrote more here about my decision and how I view the work required of us all in this moment:
— Pete Buttigieg (@petebuttigieg.bsky.social) March 13, 2025 at 9:49 AM
Pete Buttigieg has a substack? How did I not know this?
In the weeks since I left office in January, I’ve been committing my time and attention to the kinds of things that inevitably get shorted when you serve in public office, no matter how much you try to do right by them. I’ve been tackling a fearsome backlog of neglected work at home, reading and writing more widely, strengthening friendships, and above all making up for lost time with my husband Chasten and with our children, Penelope and Gus, who were born while I was serving as Secretary and are now in preschool.
Of course, every day I have also been witnessing what is happening in our country with extreme concern, engaging in conversations about what it means and where to go next, and reflecting on what has happened to bring us to this point. Everyone I know has been doing the same – absorbing shocking news on a daily basis, and working to make sense of a barrage of developments, trying to focus on what matters most and make sense of its looming impact on everyday American life.
I’ve been doing this mainly from our home in Traverse City, Michigan. We bought the house five years ago, and then it truly became home after we became parents in 2021. We live close to where Chasten attended high school, not far from the pole barn where his parents operate their mom-and-pop landscaping business, down the road from two small cattle farms, and within short driving distance of several transportation construction projects that count among the tens of thousands now being built with funds from the infrastructure package that I spent most of the last few years working on.
Though an adopted and relatively new Michigander, it wasn’t long before I was approached about potentially running for office here. Next year will bring elections for the Governor’s office and for one of our state’s seats in the U.S. Senate. I thought seriously about both, especially after being encouraged by some of the leaders in Michigan whom I most respect, as well as by people I’ve encountered when I’m picking up groceries, catching a flight, or at the mall with my family. I’ve had long conversations with neighbors, advisors, friends, elected officials, and with Chasten about whether to run. I reflected on what I could offer in light of the exceptionally high standards of leadership and service set by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Senator Debbie Stabenow, and Senator Gary Peters. I considered what I could bring to the race compared to other likely candidates, and what running and serving would mean compared to other ways I could make a difference in the years ahead.
I care deeply about the outcome of both races, but I have decided against competing in either. My party has a deep and talented bench here in Michigan, and I am certain that we will nominate an outstanding candidate for each office. Here in Michigan and around the country, I remain enthusiastic about helping candidates who share our values – and who understand that in this moment, leadership means not only opposing today’s cruel chaos, but also presenting a vision of a better alternative.
While my own plans don’t include running for office in 2026, I am intensely focused on consolidating, communicating, and supporting this kind of vision. For years I have argued that the decisions made by elected leaders matter entirely because of how they shape our everyday lives – and that the choices made in this decade will determine, for the rest of our lifetimes, the American people’s access to freedom, security, and democracy.
Today, our country is demonstrably less free, less secure, less democratic – and less prosperous – than it was just ten weeks ago. Yet the answer is not to revert to yesterday’s inadequate status quo. Rather, it is time to show how better future-facing choices about our government and society can make us all freer, safer, more empowered – and more prosperous.
This moment requires us to relentlessly commit to what we value most, and ruthlessly lay aside whatever could divide us or distract us from this vitally important focus. An opposition only has depth when, alongside all that it stands against, it presents people with a vision of a better future, the one that they are missing out on because of the leaders now in power.
We must be bold as well as clever. Yes, we must choose our battles, but once we do, we must be prepared to actually fight them. And we must take this contest everywhere. It is not enough to take a hard look at the substantive ideas we have to offer, and our ways of explaining them, though this is certainly necessary. We now must also be more original and creative when it comes to where we make our case. The information landscape of this country is almost unrecognizably different from what it was like when most current officeholders entered politics – and will soon shift even more dramatically as digital media evolve to the next level and as artificial intelligence deepens its role as editor and, newly, as creator.
In the months ahead I will be spending more time engaging both legacy and digital media in the service of a politics of everyday life, rooted in the values of freedom, security, and democracy. I will be engaging partners, allies, friends and strangers in the service of a more convincing and widespread account of American prosperity than either side has so far offered. And I’ll also be taking advantage of my exit from office to spend much more time offline, in dialogue with people like my neighbors in Michigan and communities like South Bend, Indiana, where I grew up and served as mayor. You’ll be seeing me on familiar platforms and newer ones, developing this vision and discussing with fellow Americans what they most need from their government and their country at a time like this.
As always, I’ll be focusing on things like the prosperity of the industrial Midwest, the future of our cities and towns, the condition of our infrastructure, the need for structural reform in our democracy, the outlook for our climate, the proper role of technology, the need for greater belonging in American life, the struggle against poverty, and the contemporary meaning of deeply American traditions around community, faith, and service. I will be using my voice, and amplifying others, in the service of the values that can bring answers on these and other issues. I believe this work is more urgent than ever as America wrestles with itself in new and sometimes frightening ways, though much of what we see around us today is more “precedented” than we might admit.
As I spend time with family, reading to the kids at bedtime, comparing notes on the common cold with other parents at school drop-off, keeping up with the flow of innocent and urgent questions that come from toddlers (do onions grow on trees, why do people have cheeks, what happened to our old dog, why is winter and where is summer), I am simultaneously thankful to be away from Washington and yet also more motivated than ever to contribute to the future of this country. Every time I zip the twins up in their winter coats, I’m reminded how much they depend on adults, on everyone now old enough to be active in the civic and political life of this country, making decisions that will shape every part of their lives, years before they themselves are old enough to weigh in with so much as a vote.
As a mayor, a military officer, a candidate, and a cabinet secretary, service has defined nearly all of my professional life. That experience – alongside my experience as a husband and father – has reminded me that any office, or campaign for office, must be about the values you serve, never the other way around. Our shared values are very much at stake in the actions that each of us will take in the coming months and years, inside and outside the realm of elected politics.
I once heard it said that hope is the consequence of action, rather than its cause. In this troubled season of American life, I think that more hope – not just for a party seeking a political win but for a country seeking a better politics – will come by way of action. I will be doing my part, as I know you will.
Open thread.
War for Ukraine Day 1,124: Russia Hits More Civilian Targets in Sumy, Kharkiv, & Other Parts of Ukraine
Ramalama
Mayor Pete dropped an F bomb on social. That’s my takeaway tonight.
Redshift
@Ramalama:
Mayor Pete dropped an extremely well-deserved F bomb!
But yeah, it had an impact.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Damn right.
bbleh
He’s a stud. Yay Mayor Pete!
Raoul Paste
I have a lot of respect for this man
Jay
https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2025/03/24/Threatening-Canada-Alberta-Week/
Melancholy Jaques
Not being office keeps his options open for a 2028 run at the White House.
Who is on the Democratic bench in Michgan?
Martin
@Jay: I mean, Trump being hated more than Gretzky is loved is quite a metric.
Jay
@Martin:
And it’s Edmonchuck. Gretzky was a god in Edmonchuck, a GOAT in rest of Canada, and one month swooning into DJTdiot’s arms and he is now utter filth.
And its wasn’t just the hockey, it was values, that he has thrown away.
RevRick
Emotions drive behavior. Hope drives action towards a better future. Actions towards a better future manifest that hope.
Kristine
@Melancholy Jaques:
That’s what I thought.
Suzanne
I think Secretary Pete is fantastic.
Jay
@RevRick:
Other’s behavior drives emotions. Not the other way around.
You would know this if you ever worked retail.
Princess
Hmm, interesting. Certainly becoming Senator in 2004 didn’t hurt Obama’s presidential ambitions. I suspect he thinks it will be a rough midterm.
RaflW
Meanwhile Sen. Murkowski (R – Wishy Washy) says “There has to be accountability.”
OK, lady. You’re in the majority party in the Senate. You can call for hearings.
So we have any Juicers in Alaska? Calls parroting back to her “Hey, if there has to be accountability, she can organize that” would be swell.
cmorenc
@RaflW:
Sen Murkowski: The R-senator “furrowed brow of concern” slot is already taken by the person with the bestest furrowed brow ever. You need to find a different schtick.
Sister Golden Bear
@Ramalama:
DC businesses report a sudden spike in sales of fainting couches and pearls.
RevRick
@Jay: The behaviors of others may trigger certain of my emotions, but only if you let them. The fear of heights doesn’t mean that I get all nervous at high places; it means I avoid climbing the ladder in the first place.
Oh, and my first job was at a regional discount chain working in the records and radios department. The Christmas shopping season was a learning experience.
RaflW
@Jay: I don’t know if Rev Rick has been a congregational pastor. But if he has been, then he most definitely “worked retail.”
(My partner is a former — and maybe future? — congregational minister, and I worked for years in a lay role in church organizing. Parishioners are of course much more than customers, but customer service is part of the job. :) )
cain
@cmorenc:
Whatevs..
RaflW
@cmorenc: Sen. Collins: “Still finding out the details about it. It’s inconceivable to me.”
So, once she gets the details, she’ll find the inconceivable to be “deeply concerning.” And she’ll move right along.
Jay
@cmorenc:
Hit her with fish, family, future.
NOAA is being shut down, “no fish for you”.
*NOAA research and surveys set opening dates and limits for fisheries, and NOAA is being shut down. Most commercial fish are migratory, so it’s first come, first served. As 115% of the annual limit for Bluefin Tuna was taken by New Jersey, because NOAA did not set limits, there are “no” Bluefin tuna for New York or Maine fisheries.
cain
@RaflW:
Very very concerned. So many brows will be furrowed.. and then … He has learned his lesson
West of the Rockies
@Princess:
You think 2026 will be a rough midterm election… presumably for Republicans, yes? How would that influence Pete’s announced decision? I’m not quite following but would like to hear more.
Jay
@RevRick:
@RaflW:
I am mostly flatline, all day. There, present, observing. It is other’s emotions that trigger me. Working retail taught me I can be “up” for customers, and then some customers could ruin my whole day.
As a Pastor. Minister, etc, it’s not the same as selling (well, other than many Evangelicals), a can of paint, or returning a wrong product.
It is usually deeper into a “customers” faith, lives, issues,
Where as, I got to deal with a customer returning a toilet, that “did not fit”. I opened the box, (the rules, rarely followed), a Walther box, ($475) with a used 1970’s American Standard inside, still full of shit.
Well, that was quite the encounter.
WaterGirl
@Melancholy Jaques: deep bench. He lusts some of them in the article up top.
WaterGirl
@Martin: Great way to look at it!
Shalimar
@West of the Rockies: She’s saying Pete is acting like 2026 will be a tough year for Democrats and running would risk a loss that would kill his presidential ambitions. That is what polling now is saying. Democrats are hurting a lot more than Trump and Republicans. But 19 months is an eternity away and the administration has a million things it will do before then to piss people off.
sentient ai from the future
i need everyone here to know that i am asserting that all of our publicly available and searchable discussions on this website are subject to the state secrets doctrine so that some busybody judge can’t just look at what we say to each other publicly
Gretchen
The NYT has ONE story on the front page about the biggest security breach in American history. ONE. While they devoted the whole front page to Comey re-opening the Clinton server investigation before deciding that there was nothing new there.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Shalimar:
But historically, doesn’t the party out of power typically do well in midterm elections? We’ve already seen Dems overperforming in special elections so far this year
Gretchen
@Shalimar: I don’t think that Pete wants to win a tough Senate seat and then abandon it two years later to possibly be lost. It makes me think he’s definitely planning to run for president.
Shalimar
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): If it isn’t a big year for Democrats, it will be because people have given up on democracy. I hope people will at least realize this is not the idiot dictator they want to live under.
@Gretchen: That is my assumption too.
Parfigliano
@Martin: And Gretzky’s goal scoring record is going to be broken by the Putin humper Ovechkin.
wjca
Trump has united Canadians like nothing in living memory. Gretzky chose otherwise, for whatever reasons.
And thus it is revealed that, even in Canada, some things are more important than hockey. Shocking as that may be.
eclare
He is such an effective communicator, whether it’s dropping an entirely warranted F bomb or writing an essay for his substack.
I hope he will get back into politics when his kids are older.
eclare
@Sister Golden Bear:
Hahaha…
Shalimar
@wjca: Reading Gretzky’s wikipedia page under Order of Canada, it seems like he really doesn’t like the country at all. They probably should have hated him in return long before this year.
Viva BrisVegas
In other Trump News.
Trump has lifted the bounties on the leaders of the Taliban who were responsible for killing hundreds of US and Allied military personnel and innumerable acts of terrorism during the most recent Afghan War.
These were the same people he with whom he negotiated the cowardly withdrawal agreement in 2020, which snared Biden in 2021.
frosty
I believe you meant to say “Fuckin’ A, right!”
frosty
@Jay: Gretzky. Further proof that ETTD. You think they’d learn!!!
frosty
@Gretchen: It made me think he wanted to be out of electoral politics and raise his family because he’s happy to be out of DC and happy with what he’s doing. (All together now: “Oh, you sweet, Summer child!”)
frosty
Oh, hell, looks like I killed another thread. Bye for now!
Gretchen
I’m thinking one result of today’s news is the death knell for JD Vance’s presidential ambitions. Everyone on that text chain was in the wrong, and knew they were violating security protocol. Hegseth is getting the most attention now, but Vance was on it, knew it was wrong, and did it anyway. Pete and others are going to hang this around his neck at every opportunity, that he can’t be trusted with national security, that he’s too stupid to notice that there’s a journalist on the text. He’s done. Hahahaha.
And yes, I want Dems to hammer this at every opportunity: the Vice President of the United States was using unsecured communications with no record-keeping to make war plans. Disqualifying.
eclare
@Gretchen:
He also went against FFOTUS by saying that he thought the US should delay the bombing for a month.
hitchhiker
Everyone is sleeping, but it’s not even 11 pm here on the left coast, so I’m putting this out there.
I’m still unable to try to make sense of electoral events, future or past. When I read things that begin with “Democrats lost because … ” I close my eyes. And when I read things that begin with, “Democrats can/can’t win this seat … ” I leave the room.
I can’t try.
I thought I understood a lot just a few months ago, but NOPE. I was really interested in parsing it all out, writing my postcards, making my donations, listening to informed people. All wasted time. Every minute, I might as well have been reading old Mad magazines.
I don’t think anybody has the first clue what’s going to happen, much less how to pull away from this cliff if that’s even possible. The federal government is in the hands of lawless thugs, and the whole world knows it.
I heard someone say that what the thug in chief is really good at is finding places where trust exists, and systematically destroying them. Newspapers. Journalism in general. Bureaucrats. Churches. Families. The military. Law enforcement. The courts.
You name it — if there’s a sense of confidence and fairness, it has to be shit on and stomped into the mud. Nihilism is the goal. Making people angry and suspicious, that’s the whole game.
My sense of order and peace is very local right now; like Pete’s, my family includes a couple of preschooler twins who were born in 2021. I will listen to anything he says because he radiates the opposite of nihilism. For now, that’s the best I can do.
Gretchen
@hitchhiker: I’ve got preschooler twins too, aged 2 1/2! I’ve spent the last 5 weeks here on baby-lifting duty while their mom recovers from surgery that involved not lifting anything for a month. I’m due to leave for the airport in 5 hours, and won’t see them again for months. I’m not feeling sleep coming, and not looking forward to saying goodbye. I also have other grandsons ages 11, 6, 3, and 1. We can’t give up – we need to leave them a functioning country. Mayor Pete’s working on that, and we need to help however we can.
YY_Sima Qian
More & more such stories coming out:
The reactionaries are keeping on proving w/ bayonets, & not finding steel.
Rusty
@Gretchen: Hell, the NYT devoted gazillion of pixels to driving two university presidents from their jobs for the audacity of being sandbagged by Republicans at a meaningless hearing. They wrote so many articles in a short time that they got down to generating a timeline of the event, yes, one day of testimony at a congressional hearing. It was mere circumstances that both just happened to be the rare woman picked to be ivy league presidents. The NYT does not act in good faith.
TS
@Gretchen:
It only matters if a Democrat does this – when this philosophy of voters and the media can be changed, then it might impact an election.
hitchhiker
@Gretchen: Ah, I’m thankful every day that I live near the twins and their little cousin. All three of them born during 2021, and yes — we have to try.
This morning mr h and I were in Costco on our weekly trip to see the solo guy, and for some reason everyone in the store was very cheerful and kind — not in a fake store-persona way, but just like, being human. It was striking & made me feel how hunkered down things have been feeling lately.
Not a world I want the kids to grow up in! We have to do better.
Spc
@Shalimar: largely because Ds are down on Ds – this energy could change quickly though. For Pete, it could also be about internal polling – maybe not a cakewalk and a loss to another D at the state office level would become a career staller.
Baud
Via Reddit
Betty Cracker
My guess is Buttigieg isn’t running for state office not because he worries about the risk but because he’s going to run for POTUS in 2028. We have no idea what bizarro world we’ll be living in two or three years hence (the same is true for two or three months, tbh), but Sec Pete is a serious guy who could be a great candidate, IMO.
Y’all’s guesses are as good as mine for what kind of environment Dems will face in the midterms. (Probably better since my political instincts are usually pretty terrible!) But I’m not as dismayed as some folks are about the internecine skirmishes we’re currently seeing.
Infighting can be counterproductive and destructive as hell if it gets out of hand. But sometimes having it out is necessary. Discontent with the party isn’t a media creation, IMO. It’s real, and if the energy of the base can be channeled in a new direction, that could be a good thing.
Elizabelle
@Baud: It’s painful to watch Jasmine’s speech, because she begins with Kamala having to concede to … that.
And then she says she knew it was going to be bad, but not this fucking batshit …
Much like above. I think it’s not an accident the F bombs are flying. It’s to talk to the base who supported Kamala and saw the danger of fascism.
We hear you. We get you.
Suspect Schumer made the best call he could on the CR — we NEED the federal courts functioning — but he needs to go.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Not my fight.
Elizabelle
@Baud: I hear you. But I think one can have been a very good leader, and it is time to go. (NOTE: this is not remotely about Joe Biden; purely Schumer.)
Anyway. Sipping a cocktail because I have been up since the early morning hours. Woke up after a terrible dream about losing all my money. (I think it was a crypto scam, too, FWIW, which I would NEVER fall for when not asleep.)
Don’t have to get up for a few hours; hope can slip back into sleep.
I was never up with dreams like this during Biden’s presidency.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: I like our chances in the midterms.
But. Disinformation is a powerful tool, and I suspect it might have been targeted and deployed to keep some (too many!) of our voters home.
Now to get off a screen and back to Morpheus. I hope.
Baud
Baud
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: Awww @ r/Awww bunny
eclare
@Baud:
Awww
Steve in the ATL
@MagdaInBlack: @eclare: is “squee” no longer a thing?
Baud
@MagdaInBlack:
@eclare:
@Steve in the ATL:
These days you have to be careful about images like this being AI. But no one in the comments suggested that, so I’m choosing to believe.
Geminid
@Melancholy Jaques:
State Senator Mallory McMorrow for one. U.S. Representative Haley Stevens is another. I think both are reported to be considering a run for Senate. Sen. McMorrow may have announced already.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: it happens. According to my wife, those photos of her with the pool boy were AI fakes.
Baud
@Steve in the ATL:
Same thing happened to Jerry Falwell Jr.
MagdaInBlack
@Steve in the ATL: Squee does not go well with black.
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: ( well it’s kinda staged in that someone put a branch of a blueberry bush in the bean garden) but its still damned cute =-)
Princess
@West of the Rockies: You might not see this but I meant: a tough midterm for Democrats.
Betty
@Redshift: Straight up military talk. Like SNAFU, but none of this is normal.
Geminid
@Geminid: I left out Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessell. She currently leads in at least one early poll with Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Rep. Haley Stevens behind and most respondents “Undecided.”
Sen. Mallory McMorrow is the subject of a new Politico Magazine article. It’s long, as Politico Magazine articles typically are. McMorrow has a memoir coming out titled, “Hate Won’t Win.”
trnc
Like decimating elections.
Scott
This is why Pete is a great communicator. Almost no passive voice. Direct, clear.
Baud
@Scott:
Fuck ups were made!
Jackie
@Geminid: Michigan AG Dana Nessel is running for governor, while Mallory McMorrow is running for senator.
I believe Michigan’s Lt Gov Gilchrist is also running for governor, along with Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. A deep bench for sure.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@RaflW:
Look up the definition of “broken record” and there will be a picture of Suzie Furrowbrows in it.
You could plant soy beans in that brow it’s so deeply furrowed.
Don_K
@Melancholy Jaques:
Well, AG Dana Nessel, SoS Jocelyn Benson, LG Harlin Gilchrist, State Senator Mallory McMorrow, to name a few.
I’m disappointed Pete won’t be running, but I’m sure we have the people to help lead Michigan into the future. And Pete is setting the right tone for progressive campaigns to come.
Geminid
@Jackie: I’m pretty sure AG Nessel is expected to run for the Senate, which is why she was included in early polls along with Buttigieg, Stevens and McMorrow. But the contenders will announce before too long and we’ll know for sure then.
Don_K
@Geminid:
Stevens is my congresscritter, and, well, she has to speak up. So far, all I know about her is that she worked on Obama’s automotive task force. AFAICT, she has no particular vision for the country.
Old School
@Baud:
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the video appears to have been pulled because it was AI.
Baud
@Old School:
I WILL PROVERBIALLY SHOOT THE MESSENGER!!!
Thanks for the reality check. Too bad.
Denali5
In a perfect world I would be for Mayor Pete. This is a world is tainted by liars, morons, and AI, not to mention groups like Cambridge Analytics which swayed voters methodically by using their fealty to guns above all to make sure that they voted for TCF. Using the small numbers of Trans people to scare people was reprehensible; it worked. I really don’t know how we fight this. Schumer I think has been almost immobilized by the Israel/Gaze conflict. It is impossible to choose sides in these everlasting nightmare. I do think it is time for Schumer to go.
chemiclord
@Gretchen: Being JD Vance killed any of JD Vance’s presidential ambitions.
Geminid
@Don_K: I basically know two things about Haley Stevens: she was one of the forty Democrats who flipped Republican seats in 2018, and after redistricting shifted Michigan’s congressional districts Haley ended up contesting the current district with Rep. Levin. She won that 2022 primary.
MagdaInBlack
@Old School: Well hell. (still cute)
tam1MI
Dana Nessell is the type of Dem we need right now. She fights.
Ruckus
I always knew Pete was good, but damn, he is a better human than I thought.
He understands the big picture, the humanity, the good and the bad. And in a democratic manner. Which means he sees people, has a good understanding of humanity in all its good and all its pure crap. That is actually far rarer than many believe. We often see our lives and yet really don’t see how different it can be for the rest of humanity. I got a lesson in that as a kid, one of my neighbors was a magician, who had injuries from WWII. He explained some of his tricks and that was far different than many people who guard their lives and themselves from others because there is always someone who try in some way to take away, lower other’s opinion of someone because that someone has skills or a manner that others appreciate that this someone does not have. It’s humanity that this someone is short of, they want to be better than everyone else at humanity but they have zero notion of what humanity is, it’s range and skills and therefore can’t manage better. We can all be human, but we all have different levels of skills. Some are great, amazing cooks, some can sing, and many can really do neither. We all have skills, in varying degrees from can’t to amazing. But some think they have all the skills, and no one does. And some can surprise others and themselves because they have skills they don’t know about.
Think about our current president. What skills does he have? Being an actual, good president? I’m going with not on his best day. He thinks about everything as it pertains to HIM. One cannot be a president of a nation selfishly. Because it isn’t about HIM, or HER. It really is about all of us. Every last damn one of us. The good, the bad, the indifferent.