July 2019 | Rolling Stone | 69
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UTTIGIEG LIKES TO SAY that the African
American voters in South Bend, who know
him best, love him and contributed to him
being re-elected 80 percent to 20 percent
in 2015. This is a bit of magical thinking. Buttigieg’s
relationship with the South Bend black communi-
ty is complicated, and he won a predominantly Af-
rican American ward by only a 52-48 spread in 2015.
Not since Gov. Mike Dukakis ran on the Massachu-
setts Miracle in 1988 — arguing that his transforma-
tion of his home state could be duplicated at the na-
tional level — has a candidate relied so heavily on a
turnaround story as Buttigieg does with South Bend.
A lot of it is true. Like much of the Rust Belt, the city
had been in seemingly permanent decline. After
carmaker Studebaker abandoned the town near-
ly 60 years ago, population dropped almost 25 per-
cent, from 130,000 in 1960 to 100,000 in 2010. Butt-
igieg promised technocratic changes — he employed
a team of Notre Dame whiz kids to map which hous-
es were abandoned — and youthful optimism. “A
city gets beaten down enough, it forgets what is pos-
sible,” says Mark Neal, who served as acting mayor
while Buttigieg was in Afghanistan. “Pete reminded
people that there were things we could do.”The downtown has been revitalized with new con-
struction, new restaurants and a glorious light show
that reflects off the St. Joseph River nightly. Buttigieg
installed sensors on the city’s ancient pipes to ensure
water flowed safely. He even helped rename a major
downtown street Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
But the day-to-day impact on South Bend’s 27,000
black residents is less clear.
Giving Buttigieg props for renaming a street is a
“pretty low bar,” says Regina Williams-Preston, a
South Bend council member who has both good and
bad things to say about the mayor. (She lost a may-
oral bid this spring.) She takes me on a tour through
the city, pointing out a general lack of black con-
struction workers and showing me the sites of one
of Buttigieg’s main policies, the demolition of 1,000
vacant homes in 1,000 days. The policy was both
welcomed and disputed. “They were taking down
whole blocks at a time, and that could cause the
spread of lead and asbestos,” Williams-Preston says.
By her account, the Buttigieg administration wanted
to push on but faced opposition. “Finally, Pete kind
of backed down and was like, ‘OK, let’s put a mora-
torium on this. Let’s train our inspectors to identi-
fy asbestos.’ ”That wasn’t the major issue. Shortly after taking of-
fice, Buttigieg was contacted by federal investigators
informing him that police chief Darryl Boykins, South
Bend’s first black police chief, was under investiga-
tion for illegally taping conversations with other po-
lice officers. Buttigieg was disappointed that Boykins
hadn’t told him about the investigation and, under-
standing that the feds would act if he hesitated, fired
him over the phone. The black community’s displea-
sure was expressed loudly for months.
“I learned not to fire somebody remotely,” Butt-
igieg tells me. “I should’ve sat down with the chief
and had that conversation, at the very least. I don’t
think there would’ve been this back-and-forth with
his resignation. I never made that mistake again.”
But the damage had been done, especially when
it was rumored that some of the recorded police of-
ficers had made racial slurs on the tapes. Buttigieg,
citing pending legal action, refused to release or even
listen to the tapes, which outraged black citizens.
From there, it was a long slog back to trust.
But Mayor Pete worked at it. A practicing Episco-
palian, Buttigieg started visiting black churches on
Sundays. A concerted effort was made to be the first
on the scene after a shooting. He helped set up a citi-
zens’ violent-crime task force while allowing activists
to get the credit. “In a lot of cities, the mayor is the
face of it,” says Gladys Muhammad, a longtime activ-
ist. “He was the initiation, but he took a back seat so
that it could happen.”
Buttigieg won back many South Bend African
Americans. Still, a recent Prosperity Now study
showed that 40 percent of South Bend African Amer-
icans live below the poverty level, a rate significant-
ly higher than the national average. (To his credit,
Buttigieg was the one who urged for the study to be
done in the first place.) Williams-Preston gives him
points for working hard to improve things for South
Bend minorities, but she isn’t quite ready to sign off
on a miracle.
“He started a conversation here in South Bend,
and that’s great,” Williams-Preston tells me as we
drive out of downtown toward neighborhood roads
filled with potholes. “With Pete, he’s saying, ‘Well, I
can be president because we’re this model for Amer-
ica.’ I don’t know about that.”
A few hours after I interview Buttigieg, the mayor
is at Corby’s Irish Pub in South Bend, celebrating the
mayoral- primary victory of his hand-picked succes-
sor, James Mueller, Buttigieg’s former chief of staff
and classmate at St. Joseph High. Mueller is sup-
posed to be the focus, but most of the turnout ze-
roes in on Buttigieg. There are red-flushed men in
Notre Dame gear, and a drunk-off-his-ass, longhaired
local reminding Buttigieg that he volunteered on his
first campaign. Buttigieg patiently listens to all com-
ers. His husband is here too, posing for selfies with
grandmothers. “Chasten reminds me that getting my
head out of politics at least every now and then is re-
ally important,” Buttigieg tells me. “What we want
from each other is much deeper, and it’s not condi-
tioned on what’s happening professionally.” Even-
tually, the couple want children, and they look like
naturals as they pose for a picture with a baby in
a stroller. There is something else I noticed before
Buttigieg and his husband disappear in an SUV: A
significant number of African Americans have filled
the bar — from business types in sportWHEN PETE MET CHASTEN
Buttigieg is the first openly gay presidential candidate.
He came out in 2015 at age 33, and married his partner,
Chasten, a schoolteacher, in 2018.SCHOLAR
AND SOLDIER
Buttigieg served a
seven-month tour
in Afghanistan,
working as a driver
and researching
how the Taliban
financed its terror
operations.FAMILY TIES
His father was
an immigrant
from Malta and a
professor at Notre
Dame; his mother
worked as a linguist.
Buttigieg’s father
passed away just
as he launched his
campaign. “One
thing I learned from
them is a sense of
the way big forces
and little things
interact,” he says.[Cont. on 96]