ABOVE: Mayor Pete Buttigieg headlines Pride at the Polls in St. Pete Oct. 28. (Photo by Dylan Todd)
ST. PETERSBURG | Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg headlined Pride at the Polls at Williams Park Oct. 28, encouraging Tampa Bay voters to support former Vice President Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 general election.
Buttigieg endorsed Biden for president earlier this year following his own historical bid for the office, in which he became the first openly gay man to win presidential delegates. Pride at the Polls followed an event he hosted in Tampa for fellow veterans in support of the former vice president.
A number of elected officials discussed the importance of the election and the LGBTQ vote to those assembled, all of whom wore masks and maintained social distance. Among the speakers were openly LGBTQ State Rep.-Elect Michele Rayner and St. Petersburg Council Member Darden Rice, each of whom has made political history in Tampa Bay.
Longtime LGBTQ allies U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, State Rep. Ben Diamond, Pinellas County Commissioner Janet Long and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman also spoke. Kriseman introduced Buttigieg to roaring supporters, noting he would call him “Mayor Pete until he becomes Secretary Pete or U.N. Ambassador Pete or whatever he ends up doing in the Biden administration.
“I’m not sure he needs much introduction but I’m going to give you a quick summary,” Kriseman mused. “He is a veteran of the war in Afghanistan; he was an intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve; he is a graduate of Harvard and Oxford; he is a Rhodes Scholar; he was one of America’s great mayors serving the city of South Bend from 2012 to 2020 and he is the husband of Chasten.”
Kriseman subsequently discussed Buttigieg’s historical bid for president, advising he inspired Americans nationwide. He then mused that the former mayor had “a late addition to his resume: Fox News slayer,” before warmly welcoming him to St. Petersburg.
Almost immediately, a protestor attempted to disrupt Buttigieg’s opening remarks in support of Donald Trump’s re-election. The Biden surrogate responded by asking the crowd, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a president who will serve him just as enthusiastically as he’ll serve us?”
“Wouldn’t it be nice,” he continued, “to have a president who cares just as much about protecting the lives of those who protest us as those who stand at our side? … Don’t you feel a little sorry for a president who finds it necessary to draw this kind of support?”
Buttigieg then addressed the protestor directly. “It’s okay, sir, because when Joe Biden is president, you will be safer too.”
Despite additional attempts to disrupt Buttigieg’s more than 10-minute speech, he clearly outlined his support for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. “I have told the Biden-Harris campaign I would go anywhere to support the cause,” he noted. “I didn’t know that would mean going into the mind of Mike Pence for a while to help with debate prep. I didn’t know he would mean going on Fox News quite as often as it has. But when they told you that part of what they needed was to go to St. Pete, I was pretty excited.”
He subsequently discussed what he called Trump’s mishandling of COVID-19, “one of the worst mass causality events in American history,” as well as the president’s words directed to the far-right hate group the Proud Boys. “Stand back and stand by,” Trump said during the first presidential debate when asked to condemn them.
“Hate is not the American way and it will have no home in the White House when we get a new and better president,” Buttigieg stressed, turning to Biden’s commitment to LGBTQ equality.
“We are all for the idea that you should be treated equally no matter who you are, no matter who you love, no matter how you identify, and that the LGBTQ community deserves full equality under the law,” he said. “One of the reasons we’re winning this election is that American people already agree with us on the major policy questions of the day.”
“It’s about character. It’s about decency,” he said. “You don’t have to be a die-hard Democrat to know that America is better off when we have a president who gets up in the morning and his first instinct is to bring us together, not to divide us apart for political purposes … This is our chance.”
“Look, here’s the thing about 2020,” Buttigieg concluded. “It sucks. But 2020 is not over yet and we get to write the last and most important chapter in the story of 2020 – we’re doing it right now and we will look back on this moment with Pride. Thank you for caring. Thank you for coming. Thank you for voting. Let’s give ourselves a lot to celebrate in a few short days.”
For more information about the Nov. 3 general election, including how and where to cast your ballot, read Watermark’s in-depth coverage and view our 2020 LGBTQ Voters’ Guide.
View our full gallery of photos of Pride at the Polls by Dylan Todd below.
You must be logged in to post a comment.