Pete Buttigieg Energizes Wisconsin Democrats

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg spoke to a group of Democratic supporters at a campaign stop in Wisconsin Friday in the final days of this election cycle.

"When it comes to the actual issues, most Americans are already with us," Buttigieg said to an animated crowd.

Buttigieg campaigned on behalf of Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, the Democratic challenger to the state's anti-LGBTQ+ Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson.

Barnes trails slightly in the polls but remains within the margin of error in a race categorized as a toss-up.

"There's a reason people all over the country are watching Wisconsin to see what's going to happen in this state that's been the tipping point again and again because it is so close," Buttigieg said.

Buttigieg addressed the intense anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment of Republican lawmakers and political candidates across the country.

The American public, Buttigieg said, is not on board with those sentiments.

"Most Americans understand that the most important thing when it comes to our children at school is not whether they're going home to two moms or two dads. It's whether they're going home safe every single day," the father of twins said.

Buttigieg earned hefty applause with his subsequent statement.

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Most people, he said, agree that "my marriage counts just as much as anybody else's marriage. Most Americans agree that God doesn't belong to a political party."

He added, "I'm excited to send a message that [Americans] prefer those who build bridges over those who ban books."

Buttigieg acknowledged that voters have been inundated with TV commercials, mailers, text messages, and "TikTok after TikTok."

However, he promised that the end to those messages was near.

"[If] everyone who might vote, votes -- we're going to have a lot to celebrate a week from Wednesday," Buttigieg said.

He closed his remarks by imploring everybody to vote for Democrats November 8 and encouraging them to imagine an America of the future, where the turning point began with this election.

"We will have seen something the world has never seen, which is a fully inclusive, fully diverse, fully representative large-scale democracy," he said.

Buttigieg has been a popular surrogate on the campaign trail with the kind of star power akin to that of former President Barack Obama, who will be campaigning in Wisconsin Saturday.