With the Democratic primary race in full swing, we've learned more about where the 2020 presidential election candidates stand on the issues — but who are these people really? Shondaland.com wanted to find out, so, with a questionnaire crafted by Shonda Rhimes herself, we reached out to every Democratic candidate who has announced their candidacy and asked them all the exact same questions. From what inspires them, to their favorite dance-floor jam to, of course, what they're planning to do in office, here's an opportunity to get to know your Democratic presidential hopefuls a little deeper.



Candidate: Pete Buttigieg

Current Office: Mayor of South Bend, Indiana (since 2012)

You've Probably Heard That:

Buttigieg entered the national conversation in March after he qualified for the first Democratic debates, surprising those who hadn't paid the mayor much attention when he announced his exploratory committee.

Buttigieg was born and raised in South Bend. His parents taught at the University of Notre Dame; his father was a literary scholar, and his mother is a linguist.

In high school, he won first place in the JFK Profiles in Courage essay contest. Buttigieg's essay was about Bernie Sanders, who he praised for "his energy, candor, conviction, and ability to bring people together [to] stand against the current of opportunism, moral compromise, and partisanship which runs rampant on the American political scene." Buttigieg studied history and literature at Harvard and earned a Rhodes scholarship.

After a stint as a consultant, Buttigieg joined the Navy Reserve. He was elected mayor of South Bend in 2012; while Buttigieg was deployed to Afghanistan for seven months in 2014, the city comptroller served as the city's chief executive.

Buttigieg came out as a gay man during his 2015 mayoral re-election campaign. He wrote, "We Midwesterners are instinctively private to begin with, and I'm not used to viewing this as anyone else's business. But it's clear to me that at a moment like this, being more open about it could do some good." He was re-elected with more than 80 percent of the vote.

On the National Level:

At 37, Buttigieg is the youngest candidate in the 2020 race. If elected, he would become the youngest president in U.S. history. (Teddy Roosevelt, the youngest, was 42 when he assumed office; President Trump, the oldest, was 70.)

Buttigieg has been reticent to endorse Sanders' Medicare for All legislation, instead supporting what he calls "Medicare-for-all who want it." At the first Democratic candidate debates, Buttigieg said, "You take something like Medicare, a flavor of that, you make it available on the exchanges, people can buy in. And then if people like us are right, that that will be not only a more inclusive plan, but a more efficient plan than any of the corporate answers out there, then it will be a very natural glide path to the single-payer environment."

Buttigieg is a vocal supporter of women's reproductive rights, which he frequently frames as freedoms. On late-term abortion, Buttigieg told MSNBC that when women are in “extremely difficult, painful, often medically serious situations where life or health of the mother is at stake, involvement of a male government official like me is not helpful."

Buttigieg is best known for his wide-ranging knowledge, his interest in political framing, and for being the first openly gay candidate to gain traction in a presidential race.

One Key Issue He's Pushing Forward Right Now: As one of the "Climate Mayors," Buttigieg has been advocating for a comprehensive climate plan. "If this generation doesn't step up, we're in trouble," he told PRI. "This is, after all, the generation that's gonna be on the business end of climate change for as long as we live."

Ahead, more about the candidate, in his own words.



When you made the decision to run for president, who is the first person you told?

The first person I told was my husband, Chasten. We were folding laundry and talking about our day, the dogs running around — the usual — and I mentioned that I was seriously considering running. He's been on board from the very beginning, and I couldn't do it without him. As he puts it, a year ago we said "I do," and a few months ago we said, "Let's do it."

What do you do to take care of yourself? How do you unwind?

Chasten and I keep it pretty simple when we have the chance. Our night out usually involves catching up on T.V., a beer or a glass of wine, and our two dogs Buddy and Truman. The presence of our dogs who love us, and of course have no concept of politics, is the leveling force we both need after a few days on the trail.

Part of the right answer here is also exercise. I haven't been as faithful to my PT plan as l like to be on the trail, but it remains an important part of my well-being.

What book (not including the Bible) has influenced you most?

Ulysses by James Joyce. It's the greatest work of modern English literature. It's known for being complex and difficult, but in a way, it's very democratic. It's a story about what it is to be human as one middle-class guy goes about one day of his life in Dublin. It's about the incredible depth and meaning to be found in the everyday. And to me, politics has always been about how we come together to make everyday life better for Americans.

Who inspires you? Why?

Politically, my hero is President Lincoln. He not only held the country together in a time of tremendous strife, but also had a vision for the future. Lincoln laid the groundwork for the Transcontinental Railroad and set up that National Science Foundation all while part of the country had gone to war against the other part. His story shows that you need to have vision, even during — especially during — existential crises.

What are the most urgent issues facing women in America right now?

Reproductive freedom and equal pay are the issues I most often hear about from concerned women. Both of these issues are fundamental human freedoms: the freedom to control your own body and the freedom to be paid what you deserve.

I don't think that you are free in this country if your reproductive health can be criminalized by government. The bottom line is that these decisions are not going to be made any better, medically or morally, because the government is dictating how that decision should be made.

On Equal Pay, everyone, regardless of gender, deserves a fair day's pay for a hard day's work. I have a bold and simple idea on this one. The federal government should pass a new law mandating every large company report a simple annual statistic: For every dollar paid to a man, how much less was paid to a woman? It's time to ensure every American woman is paid fairly. And requiring that transparency, shining a light on unfair systems and practices, will go a long way towards ensuring that.

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What have you already done to improve the lives of poor and middle income Americans?

A lot of people associate our city with the storied university just outside our city limits — Notre Dame — and assume we must be a relatively affluent college town. But the truth is that South Bend is a diverse, largely low-income community. We were a company town hit hard by the collapse of Studebaker. And income inequality and wealth inequality persist. We know that African-American households earn half of that of Caucasian households, and that black and Latino home ownership is below that of white residents. Over my eight years as mayor, we've done a tremendous amount of work on this front.

As mayor I led reinvestments in underserved parts of town like the West Side, where we targeted resources on home repair, improved public facilities, enhanced our streetscapes, and recently opened a small business resource center.

We also invested in people. Now in its third year, we have a program that has supported hundreds of the city's residents with career training and certifications, empowering them to thrive in a changing economy. We also recognize the role that organized labor can play in providing skills training and pathways to the middle class, and we're pleased to work with local labor organizations to create a fairer system for businesses bidding on city contracts.

Since I took office, the poverty rate is down. Unemployment and employment numbers are headed in the right direction. Most importantly, we got the people of South Bend to believe that a better story was possible. That's how we earn the vote of confidence that I got from my own residents when I got re-elected with 80 percent of the vote.

How do we improve the public education system so every child gets a great education regardless of income?

I'm married to a public school teacher, so I see the power of public education every day. We need to offer federal support to Title I schools to increase teacher pay and related support. We need to expand the cap on the Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program. We need to ensure that every child has access to full-day kindergarten, and we need to invest in pre-K.

I have an economist friend who did a study looking at IRS data to find out how much of a difference it makes in your lifetime earnings if you have the very best teachers. It came out to $300,000 per kid over their lifetime. That's how much of a difference one kindergarten teacher can make in one year. And they're not getting paid close to that. So we've got to treat teachers like soldiers, and pay them like doctors.

But most of all, we need a Secretary of Education who actually believes in education.

What is your comfort food?

Now that I'm on the trail, my love of fair food is coming out again. I've learned that you can deep fry just about anything. A couple of years ago, I had something called a pork parfait at the La Porte County Fair. Imagine an ice cream sundae but instead of ice cream it's mashed potatoes, instead of fudge it's barbeque sauce, and instead of peanuts it's pork. What more can I say?

Other than God and the Constitution, what do you believe in?

I believe in the power of people to make real and positive change. It is the essence of politics at its best.

What's the issue/action in your past that the press and/or opposition is going to be (or has been) hardest on you about? What has this issue taught you, and how has it changed how you handle things moving forward?

Right now, my community is in anguish because of an officer-involved shooting — a black man, Eric Logan, killed by a white officer. I could walk through all of the things that we have done as a community, and all of the steps that we took from bias training to deescalation, but it didn't save the life of Eric Logan. And when I look into his mother's eyes, I have to face the fact that nothing that I say will bring him back.

This is an issue that is facing our community and so many communities around the country. And until we move policing out from the shadow of systemic racism, we will be left with the bigger problem of the fact that there’s a wall of mistrust put up one racist act at a time. Not just from what's happened in the past, but from what's happening around the country in the present. It threatens the well being of every community. And I am determined to bring about a day that when a white person driving a vehicle and a black person driving a vehicle are approached by a police officer, they feel the exact same thing. A feeling not of fear, but of safety.

What most concerns you about America's current position in the world?

What concerns me most is this administration's failure to continue upholding our moral leadership around the world. When I was serving in Afghanistan, I could feel a full spectrum of American power keeping me safe. My vehicle and my body armor were a part of that, but it was also the armor of American moral authority. I could feel this basic idea that most people believed, including our enemies, that the flag on my shoulder represented a country that kept its word. I'm concerned the president has put us on track to lose that trust. If we lose that, nothing will keep us safe.

What is your proudest political accomplishment? Proudest personal accomplishment?

Politically, I am proudest of the fact that my hometown believes in itself in a way that was not true at the beginning of the decade. Beyond all of the more specific, countable achievements of our administration, this is the thing that has mattered most.

Personally, I am proudest of my marriage to Chasten. I am beyond lucky to have found him, and our marriage makes me work every day at being a better, more giving, and more grounded human being.

Brianna Ellis-Mitchel

Who do you look up to?

My dad passed away this year. He was a deeply moral person, an intellectual who believed that the importance of ideas was the effect that they had in the real world. One of the best things I can do to honor him is to take ideas and put them into action. So he's very much with this campaign — he's present in every part of it.

What did you want to be when you grew up? What called you to a life of political service?

As a kid I wanted to be an astronaut. By high school, though, I had pretty terrible eyesight, so that was out of the question. As I got older and listened more closely to the conversations around my dinner table, those between my parents and their peers, I grew more interested in politics and public service. Eventually, I came to see that when you're in public service, you're working on things that matter to people at the deepest, most personal level. That work will always be incredibly meaningful to me.

What would you do to improve the current immigration policies?

Most Americans actually broadly agree on what to do about immigration, if you look at the popularity of the comprehensive immigration reform that passed in the Senate a few years back as part of a compromise with the House.

We have over 10 million undocumented immigrants in the country — often participating fully in communities, even as taxpayers — who need a pathway to citizenship, and the rights and responsibilities that come with that. We need temporary status and protections for DREAMers. We need to improve our bureaucratic and backlogged lawful immigration processes, and we need do whatever’s appropriate and necessary on border security. I think we can agree on all that.

But the biggest crisis around immigration today is the inhumanity of this administration's policies. The greatest nation in the world should have nothing to fear from children fleeing violence. More importantly, children fleeing violence ought to have nothing to fear from the greatest country in the world.

Here in the heartland, we know how much our communities benefit from the growth that happens through immigration. The President says our country's full — South Bend isn’t. We'd love to have new people come in and contribute. And we need to fix our broken system to make that possible.

The current administration has rolled back or eliminated many policies that support safe, fair and dignified work and educational environments for a majority of Americans (including LGBTQ, people of color, differently abled, women, the poor). As president, what policies would you work to reinstate?

So many policies and regulations put in place have been gutted by this administration, and some of our most vulnerable community members are suffering as a result. As president I will reinstate: Title IX and Title VII guidance protecting transgender students and workers; the Department of Education's accountability rule clarifying states' obligations under the Every Student Succeeds Act, guidance outlining the rights of students with disabilities; protections for federal contractors, and prohibitions on mandatory arbitration for certain disputes; DACA, which allows certain undocumented students to work and pursue educational opportunities without fear of deportation; EEOC rules disclosing pay by sex, race, and ethnicity; rules easing burdens on people filing civil rights complaints with the Department of Education; guidance for implementing integration programs in higher education; rules protecting women's access to reproductive health care; and protections for low wage workers. I will also undo Attorney General Sessions' "school safety" plan, which exacerbates the school to prison pipeline, particularly for students of color, and reinstate school discipline guidance.

These issues are not about politics. They are about humanity, which is why we must go beyond reinstating former protections. As president, I will work to ensure that within my team, my cabinet and all other appointees reflect the diversity of our country. I will also work with Congress to pass and sign the Equality Act, which the House recently passed, so that Americans can no longer be discriminated against based on who they are, whether that is based on who they love, what their abilities are, or what they look like. Finally, I will work to implement a Douglass Plan to bolster entrepreneurship, education, home ownership, democracy, and justice in black and brown communities across this country.

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How will you combat climate change?

Climate change is the biggest security threat facing our country. Reversing it is a generational project, and it's going to have to be a national project. As president, I will not only implement policies, but set the tone so that the public and private and social and academic sectors of this country are all pulling in the same direction and leading the world to do the same.

As president, I will work with communities to ensure the transition to clean energy is inclusive and fair for all. I will fight for the right to be healthy — to have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. And I will prepare our military and disaster response agencies for the security threats of climate change.

But right now, we're not even having a contest over whose climate plan is better — because only one side has brought forth any plans at all. You don't like our plan? Fine. Show us yours. But let's have this conversation. Because the time to act was yesterday.

Brianna Ellis-Mitchell

When you need to dance it out, what is the song you listen to?

I'm not much of a dancer, but it will be hard to beat the memory of dancing to "Livin' on a Prayer" at our wedding.

Who is your "political bestie"? I know you work incredibly hard but which elected official do you enjoy hanging out with the most?

There is a special bond among mayors who know the unique rewards and challenges of leading a city. Fellow mayors like Nan Whaley, Steve Adler, Chris Cabaldon, and others are both dynamic leaders and trusted friends.

What is America doing right? What makes you hopeful?

For all our challenges, America has shown itself to be a resilient place and one whose story "bends towards justice." The remarkable expansion of LGBT rights in the past decade is just one example of our country's ability to outgrow prejudice and do the right thing, and we will need many more such examples in my lifetime if America is going to succeed in the 21st century.



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