Only 26% of Americans said they would vote for a gay or lesbian candidate 40 years ago. But as Colorado’s Jared Polis has discovered, it is now a non-issue for many voters

The breakout star of the contest to become the Democratic party’s nominee in the 2020 race for the White House is Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and the first openly gay elected official to run for president.

“A couple of decades ago, Buttigieg’s sexuality probably would have been a deal-breaker,” the Washington Post noted. “It’s hard to overstate how quickly Americans have collectively changed their mind on LGBT issues.”

In 1978, just 26% of Americans said they would vote for a gay or lesbian candidate, according to pollster Gallup. In 1999, the figure was 59% and, by 2015, it had climbed to 74%. This is no longer theoretical. There is living proof of this warp speed transformation in Colorado, which in less than three decades has gone from notoriety as a homophobic “hate state” to electing America’s first openly gay governor.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Governor Jared Polis greets school groups at the Colorado statehouse. Photograph: Jocelyn Augustino/The Guardian

Jared Polis’s sexuality was, as columnist George Will put it, “interestingly uninteresting” to voters in last year’s gubernatorial election here. The five-term House representative (and star of the annual congressional baseball game) received more attention for the vast fortune he built as a tech entrepreneur, his progressive policies with a libertarian streak, and his trademark blend of dark suit with blue trainers (he celebrated his inauguration with a “Blue Sneaker ball”).

With an irony not lost on some, Democratic socialist senator Bernie Sanders stumped for the multimillionaire Polis during the campaign. It worked. He beat the Republican Walker Stapleton, a second cousin to George W Bush, by more than 10 percentage points.

Pete Buttigieg for president? Long-shot stands out in crowded field Read more

On one level, Polis, 43, is a somewhat robotic politician whose speeches and interviews can sound focus-grouped. Critics describe him as calculating and at times overbearing. Yet he is also warm, good with people and disarmingly quirky. His parents are self-declared hippies; his mother attended his first State of the State address with pink and purple hair. When the actor and comedian Robin Williams died, Polis dressed up as Mork from the show Mork and Mindy and laid flowers outside “Mork’s house” in Boulder.

“He’s a Generation Xer, he’s a hacker, he’s a gamer, he’s a nerd,” said Nic Garcia, a politics reporter at the Denver Post. “The enigma of Jared Polis is how he can take all of those identities and really connect with Colorado. It really does prove the thesis that the moment calls for a particular candidate and he was the one nobody saw coming.”

It is late March and the Guardian is shadowing Polis for two days. His office in the state capitol building in Denver, is furnished with a brass chandelier, artworks by Molly Crabapple and Polis’s father, Stephen Schutz, and a giant framed photo capturing sunset at Last Dollar Ranch in Ouray, Colorado, by John Fielder. Polis’s desk is clear on top save for a ceramic sign that commands: “Be bold.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jared Polis, right, and first gentleman Marlon Reis in the governor’s suite. Photograph: Jocelyn Augustino/The Guardian

The workplace culture could never be described as stiff or stuffy. Pet dogs scamper back and forth in the warren of offices. During bill signings, young children are welcome and pushchairs are parked by the door.

There is a calming influence in the form of Colorado’s first gentleman, a fresh-faced 37-year-old named Marlon Reis. He is wearing a grey suit, white shirt, animal-patterned tie and Wild Animal Sanctuary badge. He has been a vegan for 15 years and his family recently adopted two llamas and four goats.

Reis gives an interview in the governor’s office while cradling the couple’s pet dog, Gia, a nine-year-old Cairn terrier mix who has her own Instagram account. He reflects that, after 10 years of relative anonymity as a congressman’s partner in Washington – raising their children Caspian, seven, and Cora, four – he has suddenly found himself in the public eye.

“This is a much higher-profile position, and of course running as an openly gay couple, that gave it an even higher profile,” says Reis. “I’ve been very surprised, and pleasantly so, that it really didn’t matter to Colorado voters. They cared more about issues – healthcare, kindergarten, renewable energy.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marlon Reis in the governor’s mansion. ‘This is a much higher-profile position, and of course running as an openly gay couple, that gave it an even higher profile.’ Photograph: Jocelyn Augustino/The Guardian

It was not so long ago, in 1992, that Colorado voters passed a constitutional amendment forbidding local governments from creating special protections for LGBT people, provoking national outrage and earning it the label “hate state”. In 2006, the state approved a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, later struck down in the wake of a historic supreme court ruling. Reis is amazed by the pace of change.

“When I was growing up there were people on television that represented stereotypes of what people associated being gay with and it was interesting, you viewed it through a tunnel vision,” he recalls, adding that when he was in high school, he felt “GSAs – gay straight alliances – didn’t exist; at least at my school they weren’t present”.

“Now we’re at the point I’ve met high school kids who are LGBTQ community members and they’re class presidents. They have people to look up to. They have Jared to look up to as an example that you can run openly and you can achieve high office.”

Reis continues:

“People are just people, like, I’m not much of a stereotype. I’m even told that by my best friend. She said: ‘When I signed up to have a gay best friend I thought that you would be taking me out shopping,’ and I said: ‘I can’t stand shopping.’ As a matter of fact, I’d rather do anything.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marlon Reis: ‘People are just people, like, I’m not much of a stereotype.’ Photograph: Jocelyn Augustino/The Guardian

Like Reis, Polis says his sexuality was barely an issue in the election. “It hardly ever came up. I mean, people are more interested in what you’re going to do to improve our schools and fix our roads and keep our economy strong, address the high cost of living, make sure we have good jobs here in Colorado. Those are the issues that people care about.”

But would an openly gay candidate have been conceivable when you were growing up here? “We didn’t really hear about that in Colorado. There were people nationally of course. Representative Barney Frank and others were well known but it wasn’t yet a reality in Colorado. Now there’s many LGBT members of our legislature, LGBT county commissioners, and it really is not an issue for folks. People are much more concerned with what you’re going to do in office.”

Polis came out to his parents after graduating from Princeton University. In 2013, his mother, Susan Polis Schutz, told the New York Times: “We were absolutely shocked. It had never entered our minds. And worried. Aids was so prevalent. I went out and bought every book on homosexuality.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Governor Jared Polis, before delivering a State of the State address in the Antlers hotel ballroom. Photograph: Jocelyn Augustino/The Guardian

His father added in the same interview: “It was hard for us. When I was young we didn’t talk about it. All I knew was homosexuals were creepy molesting types. Susan and I figured it out together. We didn’t blame each other, it didn’t affect our relationship. We were 100% accepting of him. If I had reservations, I never expressed them to Jared.”

Back in the present, Buttigieg, married to a man, is running for president and gaining buzz by the day. Polis says: “Pete’s impressed a lot of people. I think the bigger political barrier is not his orientation but his difficult-to-pronounce name.”

Much has already been written about the left-to-centrist spectrum in the Democratic party as its 2020 primary gathers steam, including Polis’s moderate predecessor, John Hickenlooper. Where would Polis sit? “I don’t really believe in a spectrum,” he insists. “There’s plenty of good ideas on both sides.”

Polis’s explanation for why Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election does not start with interference from Russia or former FBI director James Comey. “Hillary Clinton should have visited Michigan and Pennsylvania more and worked harder to deliver those states,” he says bluntly. “Colorado did go for her by a significant margin and it took a lot of work to do that.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Governor Jared Polis, right, talks to legislators and staff about his initiative on full-day kindergarten in his office. Photograph: Jocelyn Augustino/The Guardian

Generally, despite a decade on Capitol Hill, Polis seems a little guarded when commenting on national issues. When the question arises of whether Democrats have an antisemitism problem following Minnestoa congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s recent comments about Israel, Colorado’s first Jewish governor shoots back: “No, that would be the British Labour party.”

After 18 minutes, Polis has to attend a photo op. Later there is an event with the Global Down Syndrome Foundation. “Are there remarks?” Polis asks a staffer; he is handed a speech. He enters the ornate hall, shaking hands and chatting with children with Down’s syndrome. “Fourteen years old,” he tells one girl, “that’s a great age!” He delivers the speech, a little stiffly with eyes trained on his sheets of paper, though he makes a self-deprecating joke about his lack of dress sense.

Megan Bomgaars featured in the reality TV show Born This Way, comes to the lectern but looks uncertain about the microphone. “Hold it close,” reassures Polis, “Just hold it close.” She is still speaking when an aide whispers to Polis: “Can I steal you?” He is whisked into a side room to deal with business.

Back in the governor’s office, there is a series of bill signings on state legislation ranging from fire protection to pharmaceuticals to district court judges. Polis hands out official pens embossed with his name. One state senator carries her infant daughter, dressed as a train driver. Polis smiles and says: “Choo! Choo!”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Governor Jared Polis filming a video message for an upcoming event in an office at the statehouse. Photograph: Jocelyn Augustino/The Guardian

He sits down among cameras and white screens to record a video to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Gill Foundation. It was set up by Tim Gill, a wealthy software developer who, along with Polis, Pat Stryker and Rutt Bridges – Colorado’s “gang of four” – spent many millions of dollars on gay rights and other liberal causes, helping turn Colorado’s general assembly from Republican to Democratic in 2004.

Conservatives in the state are naturally dismayed and worry how Polis will regulate the oil and gas industries or move to scrap the electoral college in favour of a national popular vote. Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute, a free-market thinktank in Denver, says: “Jared is a lovable, weird rich guy. He took the family fortune and multiplied it several times … The question is, can he be a counterbalance to the kooky leftwing surge going off the rails in Colorado?”

Polis’s sexuality was important to gay rights activists but no one else, Caldara added. “To the credit of Colorado voters, it was largely a non-issue. I don’t think people gave a damn. Nobody I know on the right is upset because he’s gay; we’re upset because he’s destroying the state of Colorado and turning it into California.”

Back at the video recording, an interviewer asks him directly: “How does it feel to be the first openly gay man elected governor in the United States?” His reply is tangential: “It’s easy for me to know that I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the work of the Gill Foundation and so many others who laid the groundwork for something like this where sexual orientation just doesn’t matter in a statewide race for governor in a state with a chequered history on equality.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jared Polis, greets children at Greenlee elementary school during a full-day kindergarten event. Photograph: Jocelyn Augustino/The Guardian

Polis wraps up Thursday alongside state representatives on conference calls to newspaper editorial boards, fielding questions about a bipartisan bill to fund full-day kindergarten to the tune of an estimated $185m. He leaves work well after 7pm and, by 8.30am the following day, is at a Denver school to celebrate the bill. He makes remarks and nods to 14 children, sitting cross-legged on the floor, who will benefit from full-day kindergarten next year.

As aides hurry to post photos of the event on social media, Polis climbs into his official black SUV and sets off for Colorado Springs. As the snow-capped rocky mountains roll by he talks, sometimes with his head leaned back and his eyes closed, sometimes breaking off to deal with his three iPhones (one for state business, one for email, one personal).

The conversation roves over education, his role in legalising marijuana, Trump, Brexit, favourite TV shows (Game of Thrones, The Simpsons, Family Guy) and video games (Warcraft, Sins of a Solar Empire, League of Legends), holidays in Israel and Italy, what it was like to be a millionaire at the age of 23 and keep his cool – anything, in fact, except his sexuality.

Polis is proof how fast things can change in America

When, his lunch half-finished and his dessert untouched, he delivers a version of his State of the State address to a packed ballroom at the Antlers hotel, it seems to be the last thing on anyone’s mind.

Polis is proof how fast things can change in America. Eric Marcus, creator and host of the Making Gay History podcast, says: “It’s a non-story but I also feel very excited it’s a non-story. It’s emblematic of how fast the world has changed and how opportunities have opened up for LGBT people.

“When I was growing up, there was nobody who was out and running for office. I saw no path. The rapid change in attitudes has been breathtaking in Colorado and other parts of the country. It’s reached a tipping point.”

Buttigieg is a millennial, a polyglot and an Afghanistan war veteran who raised more than $7m in the first quarter. Is America ready for a gay president? Marcus adds: “Ready or not, there’s someone running and, in many ways, that’s the least interesting thing about Pete Buttigieg.”