Pete Buttigieg on the Democrats’ Sweep of Congress, and Where They Go from Here

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David Remnick (1:41)

Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Conventional wisdom in politics, well, it can turn on a dime as we've just seen. Weeks ago on this program, you were raising serious questions about whether free and fair midterm elections would even take place. Now, call it a tsunami, call it an earthquake, what have you, the Democrats will hold large majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Maybe most shocking of all, the president skipped right over denial and immediately began finger-pointing at his allies, something and someone to blame for the defeat.

Our guest today, Pete Buttigieg, no stranger to quick turns in politics. In a few months of 2019, he went from running a small Indiana city, South Bend, to emerging as a plausible candidate for the presidency. While he came up short, his star did not dim. He joined the Biden administration, and this year he's been one of the most in-demand Democratic surrogates on the campaign trail. Buttigieg is widely expected to be a candidate once again in 2028 But two years can be a very long time, as we've seen. If the Democrats are going to hold on to victory long enough to elect a president, then they'll have to figure out how to make an impact in these next two years, even with an angry lame duck in the White House. I asked Pete Buttigieg what that might look like.

We're speaking now after a momentous election. Tell me how you're feeling and maybe more deeply, what does this all mean?

Pete Buttigieg (3:15)

Well, it's extraordinary, and I think it is the beginning of a change in the era that we're living in. Now, a lot depends on what happens next. This is more of an opening than it is an answer. But I think fundamentally, there was a widespread and wholesale rejection of Donald Trump's policies on the congressional Republicans who enabled him. The American people clearly saw corruption and their economic frustrations. There's two categories of things that were related to each other. They voted accordingly. The president invited the electorate to imagine that he was on the ballot. I think what happened is we took him up on that.

And that's why there was such just a resounding, extraordinary defeat for the Republicans, frankly beyond anything that I really hoped could happen, even though I was working hard to do my best to help make it happen.

David Remnick (4:09)

But I think it's fair to say that the Democratic Party's brand as such did not exactly get soaring ratings. So is there a possibility that you interpret or that this election can be over interpreted as an endorsement of the Democratic Party rather than a repudiation of Donald Trump and MAGA specifically?

Pete Buttigieg (4:30)

Yeah, that's part of what I mean when I say this is an opening rather than a solution. What has happened is Democrats have been given a chance. This doesn't mean everybody suddenly fell in love with the Democratic Party. What it means is that Democratic candidates, sometimes as part of the party, sometimes in spite of the party label, persuaded voters that we had better answers. And I do think one thing that's important to recognize is, you know, for years now, it has been the case that Democratic policies have been more popular than the Democratic Party or Democratic politicians.