Pete Battigeg said he is considering running for the Senate next year in his adopted hometown in Michigan.
“I’ve seen it,” the former Transportation Secretary and former presidential candidate admitted in his latest interview as he pointed out an emerging race to take over Senator Gary Peters. The Democrat for two terms announced in January that he would not seek re-election in 2026.
“I’m going to continue working on what I care about,” Battigeg explained in detail when he appeared on CBS’s “Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Tuesday night.
Buttigieg said, “I haven’t decided what it means professionally or whether it means running for office any time soon. But I make myself useful.”
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Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg will speak at a press conference held in Long Beach, California on July 18, 2024 (Tim Rue/Getty Images)
In signs of how seriously he is taking the Senate campaign in the key Great Lakes battlefield states, sources familiar to Fox News, who met with Chamber’s longtime Democratic leader, New York Senate leader Chuck Schumer last week.
The 43-year-old Buttigieg is a former Navy Intelligence officer who was deployed to the war in Afghanistan and served for eight years as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and was a long-running filming candidate when he began the 2020 presidential election.
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However, his campaign sparked a fire, and he narrowly tightened Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and won the Iowa Caucus before coming closest to Sanders’ second in the New Hampshire presidential primary. Buttigieg, along with other Democrats, dropped out of the race, winning the South Carolina primary in a landslide, dominated the Super Tuesday contest and earned a nomination before ultimately winning the White House.
The Millennial Democrat, who served as Biden’s Secretary of Transport for four years, has remained popular as one of the young stars within the Democrats.
Pete Buttigieg is working on the Democratic National Convention held in Chicago on August 21, 2024 (Reuters/Mike Segar)
Buttigieg has highlighted over the past few months that he has been aiming to remain involved. In a radio interview in December near the end of his tenure as Transport Secretary, he said, “I’ll find a way to make myself useful. Maybe it’s running for the office. Maybe it’s not. I’ll get through it over the next few weeks and months.”
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And he didn’t seek reelection shortly after Peters revealed in January. A source familiar with Battigee’s thinking told Fox News Digital, “Pete is exploring all the options as to how he can help and continue to serve… he is honored to mention this, and he is taking it seriously.”
After the 2020 presidential campaign, Buttigieg and his spouse, Chasten, moved from Red State Indiana, Indiana to nearby Michigan, where they own a home in Traverse City.
Buttigieg is not the only Democrat who has a tough look to make Peters successful.
Michigan Sen. Gary Peters was interviewed by Fox News Digital at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on August 19, 2024 (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
State Sen. Mallory McMorrow could launch a democratic campaign. McMorrow attracted public attention in 2022 after giving a floor speech in the Michigan Senate, which was considered a model to counter the GOP attack.
Among the other Democrats who expressed interest in running are two-term Michigan Attorney General Dana Nesse and Rep. Haley Stevens.
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Former Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) announced at the end of January that he was “strongly considering” the second Republican run in the Michigan Senate.
Rogers won the 2024 GOP Senator nomination in Michigan, but was slightly defeated by Democratic nominee Rep. Elissa Slotkin in the Democratic election last November for the long-time Senator of retired Senator Debbie Stavenow. Slotkin, who had far surpassed the Rogers, framed him with about 19,000 votes, or a third of a percentage point.
Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers will speak at a campaign rally in Flint, Michigan on November 4th, 2024. (AP photo/Paul Sansy)
Rogers was a former FBI special agent and later chaired the House Intelligence Committee during his tenure in Congress.
Rogers was the first Republican to publicly move forward towards launching the 2026 Senate campaign in Michigan, but GOP sources told Fox News last month that the others considering running were Rep. John James.
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The Michigan Senate race is considered a “throw” by nonpartisan political grooming in Cook’s political report The Top.
Republicans now control Senate 53-47 after flipping four seats from blue to red in the last November election.
The party in power – obviously Republicans now – has traditionally faced political headwinds in medium-term elections. Nevertheless, an early reading of the 2026 map shows that the GOP could potentially be able to launch an attack in some critical states.
In addition to Michigan, Republicans will target combat sites in Georgia. There, First Democrat Sen. John Ossoff is considered vulnerable.
And in swing state New Hampshire, longtime Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen has yet to say whether he will seek another term for reelection next year.
The GOP also focuses on Minnesota, a blue disease. There, last month Democrat Sen. Tina Smith announced that he would not seek re-election in 2026.
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But Republicans are also defending themselves in the 2026 cycle.
Democrats plan to launch an attack for moderate GOP Sen. Susan Collins to reelection.
And Democrats are looking at Ohio’s Red Ohio, where Republican Lieutenant Colonel John Husted was appointed in the Senate in January to replace Vice President J.D. Vance. Husted will run next year to end the Vance term.
Julia Johnson of Fox News contributed to this report
Paul Steinhauser is a political reporter based in New Hampshire.
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