Pete Buttigieg said he’s contemplating a run for the Senate next year in his adopted home state of Michigan.
“I’ve been looking at it,” the former Department of Transportation secretary and former presidential candidate acknowledged in his latest interview, as he pointed to the emerging race to succeed Sen. Gary Peters. The two-term Democrat announced in January that he won’t seek re-election in 2026.
“I’m going to continue to work on the things that I care about,” Buttigieg elaborated as he appeared Tuesday night on CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
Buttigieg emphasized, “I have not decided what that means professionally, whether that means running for office soon or not. But I will make myself useful.”
WHY PETE BUTTIGIEG MET WITH THIS TOP DEMOCRAT
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg speaks during a news conference in Long Beach, California, on July 18, 2024. (Tim Rue/Getty Images)
In a sign of just how seriously he is contemplating a Senate campaign in the pivotal Great Lakes battleground state, a source familiar confirmed to Fox News that Buttigieg met last week with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, the longtime leader of the chamber’s Democrats.
The 43-year-old Buttigieg, a former naval intelligence officer who deployed to the war in Afghanistan and who served eight years as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, was a long-shot candidate when he launched his 2020 presidential campaign.
BUTTIGIEG APPEARANCE ON THIS RADIO SHOW SPARKS MORE 2028 SPECULATION
But his campaign caught fire, and he narrowly edged Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont to win the Iowa caucuses before coming in close second to Sanders in the New Hampshire presidential primary. But Buttigieg, along with the rest of the Democratic field, dropped out of the race and endorsed Joe Biden as the then-former vice president won the South Carolina primary in a landslide, swept the Super Tuesday contests and eventually clinched the nomination before winning the White House.
The…
