Candidate Identity and Campaign Priming: Analyzing Voter Support for Pete Buttigieg’s Presidential Run as an Openly Gay Man

• Published date: 01 March 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231194325
• Author: Gabriele Magni,Andrew Reynolds
• Date: 01 March 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2024, Vol. 77(1) 184–198

© The Author(s) 2023

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/10659129231194325

journals.sagepub.com/home/prq

Candidate Identity and Campaign Priming:

Analyzing Voter Support for Pete

Buttigieg’s Presidential Run as an Openly

Gay Man

Gabriele Magni

1

and Andrew Reynolds

2

Abstract

Pete Buttigieg’s candidacy in the 2020 Democratic primaries caught f‌ire more than most predicted. An openl y gay man,

Buttigieg is also a veteran and a Christian. Did voters penalize Buttigieg for being gay and in a same-sex relationship? Did

his other traits offset voter negative bias? We conducted a survey with over 6000 likely voters during the primaries. We

included a priming experiment that manipulated the salience of Buttigieg’s identity traits. We then asked respondents

how much they liked Buttigieg and who they would support in a match-up between Buttigieg and Trump. Overall, voters

penalized Buttigieg for being in a same-sex relationship. The penalty surprisingly increased when his religiosity was

highlighted. In contrast, Buttigieg’s military background mitigated voter discrimination when he was presented as a

veteran married to a man. This article reveals how double standards and heterosexism penalize gay candidates, and

contributes to discussions on minority candidates and electability.

Keywords

Pete Buttigieg, gay candidates, LGBTQ politics, candidate identity, campaign priming

Pete Buttigieg was perceived to be a long shot presidential

candidate. Despite his impressive biography, he was

young, politically inexperienced, and a gay man from a

small Midwest college town. But his candidacy caught f‌ire

more than most observers predicted when he launched his

run in April 2019. Buttigieg f‌inished at or near the top in

Iowa and New Hampshire and collected more presidential

delegates than any out gay man before. Despite ultimately

dropping out of the race, he positioned himself for futur e

leadership roles. In January 2021, he took off‌ice as

Secretary of Transportation in President Biden’s cabinet,

becoming the f‌irst out LGBTQ cabinet member conf‌irmed

by the Senate in American history.

During the primaries, many warned that America

would not support a gay man in the White House. In a

2019 Politico/Morning Consult Poll, a plurality of re-

spondents thought the country was not ready for a gay

president (46%–40%).

1

Donald Trump believed that

Pete Buttigieg was too gay for America. Even Barack

Obama privately doubted that a gay candidate could

win the Presidency.

2

The campaign itself worried about

the chances of a gay candidate with Black voters in the

South.

Buttigieg faced a conundrum in deciding how to

present himself. To counter the “queer”image that

several pundits sought to lodge in Middle America’s

mind, some Democrats believed that accentuating his

military experience in Afghanistan and his devout

Christian faith would help counter prejudice. In sharp

contrast, some queer activists criticized Buttigieg for a

centrist platform and a heteronormative presentation, in

line with a respectability strategy often embraced by the

LGBTQ movement in the portrayal of same-sex rela-

tionships (Jones 2022).

3

But what was the reality of

America’s propensity to vote for an openly gay man in a

1

Department of Political Science and International Relations, Loyola

Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA

2

Author of The Children of Harvey Milk, Princeton, NJ, USA

Corresponding Author:

Gabriele Magni, Department of Political Science and International

Relations, Loyola Marymount University, 1 LMU Drive, Los Angeles, CA

90045, USA.

Email: gabriele.magni@lmu.edu

Data Availability Statement included at the end of the article