Today’s episode kicks off “The Candidates,” a new series from “The Daily” that profiles the four top-polling Democratic presidential contenders: Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden. Producers Clare Toeniskoetter and Luke Vander Ploeg told us about how they approached the first episode:

For this series, we’re focusing on one defining moment in the lives of the top candidates, a moment that reveals who they are, explains what motivates them and helps us understand their political identity.

Four candidates. Four moments. Four episodes. Up first: Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

Picking one moment for Buttigieg was difficult. At age 37, he hasn’t had a long political career or much time on the national stage. But as we dove into his life story, political correspondent Jeremy Peters brought us back to one of the elements that makes this campaign historic. Buttigieg is the first openly gay candidate for president of the United States with a chance of becoming his party’s nominee. What if we focused on his coming out story?

We wondered if this angle was too personal. But Jeremy pointed out that, in the case of Buttigieg, his coming out story captured a central tension in his political narrative.