US presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg has made it to the cover of Time magazine in what appears to be another major endorsement.
The son of Maltese and American parents, Buttigieg has been rising in the Democratic nomination polls in recent weeks, buoyed especially by his charming media presence.
Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, appears with his husband Chasten on the world-renowned magazine with the title 'First Family - The unlikely, untested and unprecedented campaign of Mayor Pete Buttigieg.'
Buttigieg is a gay Episcopalian veteran in a party torn between identity politics and heartland appeals, Time noted.
"He’s also a fresh face in a year when millennials are poised to become the largest eligible voting bloc. Many Democrats are hungry for generational change, and the two front runners are more than twice his age.
“In many ways, Buttigieg is Trump’s polar opposite: younger, dorkier, shorter, calmer and married to a man. His success may depend on whether Democrats want a fighter to match Trump," the Time report says, or whether Americans want to ‘change the channel,’ as Buttigieg puts it.