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Notes -
I would say Buttigieg'a initial rise was more that he was a young mayor in a midwestern state. It would have been a nice story, but it is also the case that everyone realized that a gay candidate would be unelectable in the general even if they never said it.
If memory serves it was kind of both, the "young Midwest mayor" angle made him look like the kind of reasonable centrist type the Democrats were searching for in the general and the "first gay president" angle gave him energy within the party. So the combination was very appealing in the early primary season. I think you're right that the Democratic electorate at the time was too focused on the "we absolutely must beat Trump, and we need a super-electable back-to-normalcy candidate to do so" to vote for a gay candidate as the primaries went on. But his rise within the party, before that point, was definitely very much helped by his being gay.
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