LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Pete Buttigieg has the national profile he needed if he'd wanted to run for U.S Senate or governor from his new home state of Michigan.
Instead, the former South Bend, Ind., mayor and U.S. transportation secretary under President Joe Biden decided on another role: helper-in-chief.
WATCH| Steve Sebelius sat down with Pete Buttigieg to talk about issues concerning voters in Las Vegas
Buttigieg has been traveling the country helping candidates for various offices — including here in Nevada, where he did an event last week with Assemblywoman Sandra Jauregui, D-Clark County, who is running for lieutenant governor.
It's no surprise that many of his visits happen to be in important states — Pennsylvania, Ohio and Georgia — critical to winning the presidency.
But Buttigieg says that, for now, he's just looking for talent.
That theme — a post-Trump future — comes up a lot in a talk with Buttigieg, even if he can't say precisely when that will be. Trump is set to leave office in early 2029, although he has trolled Democrats with talk of a constitutionally barred third term.
"Our job is not to just turn back the clock," he says. "We've got a lot more to do than just reverse the damage that he [Trump] did. We've got to present a new, different, more compelling vision that's going to speak to them, speak to people, so that they understand how if you put somebody in charge who sincerely cares about making sure that working people have support from their government, that things change in our everyday lives."
That's Buttigieg's style: moderate, sensible, pragmatic. Known for appearing in places on right-wing media where few other Democrats tread, Buttigieg believes in engagement as a form of persuasion.
"I believe in things like a Democrat like me going on Fox News, which I think is very important to speak to conservative audiences," he says. "I'm under no illusion that you do one interview, you have some great zinger and you magically convert somebody from one side to the other. But what I've noticed is that people who follow conservative media have been served up such a twisted portrait, a twisted caricature, of who Democrats actually are, that a lot of what we have to do is just get in there and make sure they understand what we actually care about, what we're actually focused on, which boils down to a better everyday life."
Another aspect of his outreach: finding areas where Republicans and Democrats agree, even on thorny issues such as immigration.
"Our country needs a healthy level of immigration for our economy to work, and there are millions of people, hard-working people, contributing in this country who are being demonized and sometimes victimized," he said. "Most of us agree that there needs to be a strong border, that criminals should be deported, and that for others who were trying to do the right thing, there should be a pathway forward for citizenship. That's what two-thirds of Americans believe in. What this administration is doing is way to the extreme, and it's hurting people."
Buttigieg says he's heard around the country people struggling with high costs for groceries, health care insurance, child care and energy. Things have changed in Las Vegas since he last visited in April 2024 to inaugurate the Brightline West high-speed train to California.
"We were cutting ribbons, breaking ground," he said. "It was gangbusters for the building trades apprenticeships, that they couldn't fill the class fast enough. Now we're seeing something a little bit different, some concern about whether there's going to be work waiting for those apprentices. ... It's a very different picture, and we need to be focused on what it would take to improve that picture."
Read Steve's interviews with other potential 2028 candidates here:
