PROVINCETOWN — For an event aimed at reelecting an 81-year-old president, the Biden-Harris Victory Fund fundraiser here on Saturday, July 20 featured a roster of notably young leaders.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, 39, spoke first, followed by 35-year-old Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.
U.S. House candidate Sarah McBride, 33, who is currently a state senator in Delaware, lit up the crowd with her story — she will become the first out transgender person in Congress if she wins her election this fall, as she is expected to do in the heavily Democratic state.
Buttigieg, 42, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, 53, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, 57, and U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, 78, rounded out the speakers’ roster, along with Emmy Award-winning actress Jennifer Coolidge.
“Our democracy is under threat if it falls into the wrong hands, but I’m also looking forward to how our democracy will flourish when it’s in the right hands,” said Buttigieg, according to an audio recording of the speeches obtained by the Independent.
Reporters at the event were permitted only to observe Vice President Kamala Harris’s speech and that of event host Bryan Rafanelli, who introduced her.
“We aren’t so much holding onto democracy as we are building it, making it better, making it more perfect,” Buttigieg said.
The forward-looking message resonated with the crowd at the Pilgrim Monument, many of whom were fearful of then-candidate Joe Biden’s chances of defeating former President Donald Trump. Biden withdrew from the presidential campaign in a written statement the next day.
“Every single person was an incredibly strong speaker,” said Cheri Ruane, a seasonal Truro resident. “There is clear passion, there is clear drive, and there is absolute resolve and commitment to pushing democracy forward in a united front.
“Any one of those people has a better voice and a better presence than Biden,” she added. “It left me feeling incredibly hopeful.”
LGBTQ Rights
Many of the speakers tailored their remarks to Provincetown’s reputation as a gay mecca, emphasizing the Democratic Party’s commitment to LGBTQ and women’s rights and the perils of a second Trump presidency.
McBride became the first openly transgender state senator in the country when she was elected in 2020. “Trans people like me now face an unprecedented wave of attacks,” she said. “Our rights are on the line, but so is our hope. So is our very sense of belonging.”
McBride saluted Biden’s leadership on a political and personal level.
“For the Bidens, community is family,” she said. “Our community is their family. This administration isn’t just the most pro-equality in our history — they see us, they understand us, in a way that no administration ever has.”
As a father of young twins, Buttigieg said his biggest priority as a parent and a politician is to ensure that younger generations grow up in a world “where the air that they breathe, and the opportunities that they pursue, and the freedoms that they enjoy will be greater than what we inherited.”
Healey, who is one of the first gay governors in America, spoke about the threat to personal freedoms from Trump and his vice presidential nominee, JD Vance.
“Trump and Vance are coming for our freedom to marry who we love,” Healey said. “Trump and Vance are coming for our freedom to vote, our freedom to live in a healthy climate, our freedom to make health-care decisions for ourselves and for our children.”
When it came time to introduce Coolidge, however, Healey couldn’t resist a joke. “I told Jennifer that she could come out here comfortably and rest assured that these gays aren’t trying to murder her,” Healey said, referring to Coolidge’s famous line in HBO’s The White Lotus.
“I hate to imitate art — but these really are some high-end gays,” Coolidge said when she took the stage, echoing another line from The White Lotus.
Healey’s speech was so powerful and effective, Coolidge said, that “I just sat there thinking, ‘Wow — I’m so glad Maura went ahead of me.’ ”
New Bridges
Markey, Healey, and Driscoll lauded a nearly billion-dollar federal grant the state was just awarded to help finance the replacement of the Bourne and Sagamore bridges over the Cape Cod Canal.
Transportation Secretary Buttigieg referred to that project obliquely, calling on the audience to “say no to the people who are out there burning books and yes to the people who are out there building bridges.”
Markey, who has sponsored several climate change bills including a Green New Deal proposal in 2023, stressed the dangers of rising global temperatures.
“We’re here today in this most special of beachside communities because we know that the fate of our planet is at stake,” Markey said.
“The planet is running a fever, and there are no emergency rooms for planets,” he said. “Provincetown knows that more than any — it’s potentially the most vulnerable community in the world to climate change.”
When Harris finally spoke, the crowd was fired up, Ruane said.
“I’m excited by a lot of the new faces here, people who I think are the future of the party,” said Jenn Dumesco of Truro and Florida. “I’m excited to see if they can step up to the moment.”
