LGBT activists were dismayed Sunday evening when “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg announced the suspension of his campaign for the Democratic Party’s nomination for the Presidency, but many Democrats\u2014and others\u2014are probably breathing a sigh of relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The end of Buttigieg’s campaign may have been a foregone conclusion even before he got trounced in Saturday’s South Carolina primary. According to the forecast<\/a> by the election-watching website fivethirtyeight.com, Buttigieg had less than a 1% likelihood of ever capturing the needed number of delegates to clinch the nomination. Saturday’s defeat simply cemented those odds against him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But some may wonder at the trajectory Buttigieg’s campaign took: from media darling and wunderkind of the left to shrugging defeat. Some analysts<\/a> point chiefly to the candidate’s inability to garner the needed support of African-American voters, on which any Democratic hopeful’s campaign must rest. But this view misses the elephant in the room: Buttigieg’s sexuality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n