Around New England

Pete Buttigieg Campaigns in Provincetown, Turns P-Town Into ‘Pete-Town’

July 6, 2019

America’s first serious openly homosexual candidate for president got a thunderous reception in the most homosexual town in America during a four-hour stop at the tip of Cape Cod.

Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, drew about 400 people to a speech in Provincetown on Friday, July 5.

Many of his supporters wore shirts that said “Pete-Town,” according to the Cape Cod Times.

Buttigieg praised what he called Provincetown’s welcoming and openness.

“I feel like Provincetown models that sense of what America could be like,” Buttigieg said, according to the Cape Cod Times.

The first question after his speech came from Camp Lightbulb, which the Cape Cod Times describes as “a sleep-away camp in Provincetown for youth across the LGBTQ spectrum.”

“Buttigieg said he would do everything in his power as a candidate and a president to empower those groups,” according to the Cape Cod Times.

Provincetown has the highest percentage of same-sex couples of any municipality in the United States, according to a 2011 study by the Williams Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Buttigieg spent a few hours as a tourist before the speech and a later fund raiser, visiting a café and walking along Commercial Street with the man he has a civil-law marriage with.

He also planned to visit Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

Buttigieg is in fifth place among Democratic candidates for president, at 5.2 percent, according to an average of major polls compiled by Real Clear Politics. He raised $24.8 million during the second quarter of 2019, according to his campaign.