‘One of the last roles to evolve’: 2020 spouses slowly find their space

Elizabeth Warren’s husband, Bruce Mann, appears for a total of five seconds in his wife’s 2020 campaign rollout video. Jonathan Gillibrand also gets five seconds in Kirsten Gillibrand’s video — through appearances in old family photos. Trudi Inslee gets an even briefer moment in the background of a shot for Jay Inslee’s unveiling.

Most spouses of Democratic presidential hopefuls are barely tiptoeing into the spotlight, drawing brief glimpses before the cameras in launch videos and announcements. It’s a reflection of the limited room for candidates to grab facetime and airtime themselves in a ballooning primary field that is already scrambling traditional campaign norms.

“As these candidates are getting introduced, the major feature is the absence of the spouses,” said veteran Democratic consultant Celinda Lake. “I think people are going to deal with that down the road, because most of these candidates need to get better known themselves.”

The early flap over Amy O’Rourke’s placement in her husband’s launch video is serving as a cautionary example of the perils. In the roughly three-and-a-half minute video released last week, Beto O’Rourke speaks directly to the camera as his wife Amy sits close on the couch next to him. O’Rourke begins the video with the words “Amy and I,” and for 210 long seconds, he speaks as Amy holds his hand and silently focuses her attention on her husband, occasionally glancing at the camera.

After that traditional deployment of a silent, supportive wife drew criticism, O’Rourke later that day again found himself getting called out for a comment he made about how Amy raises their three children “sometimes with my help.” O’Rourke later apologized for what he said was an attempt at a joke and vowed to be more thoughtful in the future.

The few spouses taking a prominent speaking role now appear to be the exception among the more than a dozen Democratic candidates to officially announce a campaign.

April McClain-Delaney receives a featured spot in her husband John’s rollout video, delivering a 26-second testimonial in his nearly six-minute video. McClain-Delaney does not discuss their personal life, instead highlighting her husband’s upbringing as a son of a union electrician and how that experience has informed his policies today, and closes saying he is “motivated by a set of progressive and ethical values.”

Despite the slow steps spouses have taken, the campaigners are expected to draw on their spouses much more as the race matures and they need surrogates in smaller gatherings in key primary states.

The biggest exception so far appears to be Pete and Chasten Buttigieg. While the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Ind., has buzzed around the TV circuit and drawn widespread praise for his appearances at a CNN town hall at SXSW and an appearance on Morning Joe, Chasten has been introducing his husband on social media.

Since the Buttigieg introductory video announcing an exploratory committee, Chasten has been boosting his husband’s message or sharing a glimpse into the couple’s life on Twitter and Instagram. He’s had Twitter interactions with CNN’s Jake Tapper and NBC’s Mika Brzezinski. A recent Twitter poll from Chasten asking which Hogwarts house from the Harry Potter series Pete would belong to garnered more than 24,000 votes and a handful of headlines. (The results indicated Ravenclaw, though Chasten revealed he is a Hufflepuff, according to an online test.)

Chasten — a middle-school teacher — has seen his Twitter follower count soar from less than 10,000 a month ago to more than 60,000 this week — even though his husband’s campaign officially remains in the exploratory phase.

He made two brief appearances in Buttigieg’s announcement video showing the couple inside their home. A Buttigieg spokeswoman said Chasten also has been at numerous campaign events where he was introduced publicly by Pete, shook hands and talked with voters.

The groundbreaking element of an openly gay presidential candidate and his husband featured in a campaign suggests more may be in store. “That’s kind of a big deal,” said Democratic consultant Mike Lux. “So, if I were that campaign, I would have [Chasten] out there everywhere, both with Pete and without. I think he’s going to be a big draw. I think people are going to be interested in hearing his story and hearing about his perspective.”

Other spouses have taken a more traditional route in their appearances, occasionally joining the candidates on speech stages and at quieter campaign stops.

John Bessler (husband to Amy Klobuchar), Bruce Mann (husband to Warren) and Erica Lira Castro (wife to Julián Castro) briefly appeared on stage at campaign rollout events, typically offering a hug, a kiss on the cheek and waving to the crowd at the side of their spouses. Bessler even carried Klobuchar’s binder of notes to the lectern before taking his leave.

Jane Sanders uniquely had the chance to deliver a speech introducing her husband Bernie at his official campaign launch in Brooklyn. “I feel honored to be his wife, and I know that might not be politically correct to identify myself as ‘a wife,’ but it’s one of the greatest honors of my life,” she said, a comment seeming to indicate the delicate nature of the role spouses are set to occupy in the race.

“It just shows how conservative people are about this role, and that this is one of the last roles to evolve,” Lake said of Sanders’s remark. “Women and men are being very tentative about it.”

Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine