Pete Buttigieg, a surrogate for Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, flipped six out of 12 undecided voters to Kamala Harris in a just-released debate from Michigan.

The event, sponsored by Jubilee Media, put Pete in front of 25 voters from his adopted home state who identified as either undecided, for Trump, for Harris, and a few who don’t plan to cast a ballot.

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After the debate, 12 voters shared that they’ll be voting for Harris, doubling the group committed to the Democratic nominee. Five were going with Trump, six were going to vote for third parties and three still intend to sit out the election.

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“What I want voters like you to hear is, ‘Anything but a vote for her’ works out to being a vote for him right now, because this is a swing state that could come down to a couple of votes per precinct. And one of those votes might be you,” Buttigieg told the group.

In formal debate style, Buttigieg threw out a thesis he defended with voters who chose to debate that issue in timed segments. With the clock counting down, the married father of two defended claims including “Americans will have more rights and freedoms under a Harris/Walz Administration” and “Donald Trump is only running for himself,” and “Kamala Harris is running to make your life better.”  

Topics covered ranged from LGBTQ+ rights and abortion access to crime and Trump’s felony convictions.

Buttigieg defended Harris’ pledge to fight for Americans’ “fundamental freedoms,” telling one voter about Harris and Trump, “There’s more personal rights — a woman’s right to choose, my right to have this ring on my finger — that I feel are much more secure if she is in charge than if he is in charge.”

Asked for evidence of Donald Trump “being against gay marriage or wanting to roll back protections for gay folks to be married,” Buttigieg pointed to the 2016 Republican platform.

“The evidence is that he ran for president with a platform that specifically said in black and white that they were against marriage equality.”

“They’ve kind of rubbed that out of the platform since the last time he ran for president,” he continued, “but the people he put on the court are contributing to a majority that already took away a woman’s right to choose and doesn’t seem very interested in protecting my right to marry, nor did he do anything to help get that legislation passed.”  

Harris has made a repeated point of calling out Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas for “saying the quiet part out loud” in his assent in the Dobbs decision, singling out marriage equality, interracial marriage and other rulings based on similar reasoning to Roe v Wade as now under threat from the court’s far-right majority.

In an afterword, Buttigieg added, “I certainly hope that I helped some people make a decision, that I helped move some people off the fence, or clear up some questions or doubts that they had. Most of all, I hope it was informative. Certainly, it was informative for me to hear from people and hear where they’re coming from.”

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