Openly gay Democratic candidate Pete
Buttigieg tweeted on Saturday that 65,000 people have donated to his
presidential exploratory committee, making him eligible to be invited
to the first Democratic National Committee debate in June.
“Thanks to you, we hit the
@TheDemocrats 65,000 donor goal in order to be invited to the first
debate,” Buttigieg tweeted. “But we are going to need to raise a
lot more money to compete.”
The 37-year-old mayor of South Bend,
Indiana has previously promised a “fresh start” for the White
House.
Buttigieg's campaign gained national
attention last week after he called Vice President Mike Pence “the
cheerleader of the porn star presidency,” a remark that hits Pence,
the former governor of Indiana and a hardline Evangelical opposed to
LGBT rights, and President Donald Trump.
“It is he stopped believing in
scripture when he started believing in Trump?” Buttigieg
rhetorically asked Jake Tapper at CNN's Democratic Presidential Town
Hall at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas.
Buttigieg is scheduled to appear Sunday
on Fox News Sunday.
(Related: Pete
Buttigieg calls Trump's record on transgender rights “extremely
disturbing.”)