Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg dropped a bombshell on Democrats last week, one lost in the chaotic news cycle following Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

He was responding to a passage in former Vice President Kamala Harris’ forthcoming book “107 Days” in which she said Buttigieg was her first choice for a running mate and “would have been an ideal partner — if I were a straight white man.”

“My experience in politics has been that the way that you earn trust with voters is based mostly on what they think you’re going to do for their lives, not on categories,” Buttigieg said before a ribbon cutting ceremony at the Monroe County Democratic Party headquarters in Indiana, according to Politico.

Conservatives have been decrying identity politics for years, and liberals have been just as vigorously espousing them as key to winning races.

Buttigieg cited former President Barack Obama winning the state in 2008 and his own two terms as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, as evidence of his approach.

“You just have to go to voters with what you think you can do for them,” he said. “Politics is about the results we can get for people and not about these other things.”

That’s radical thinking in Democratic circles, many of whom blamed Harris’ loss to Donald Trump on anything but her policies.

Obama said he was speaking to Black men in particular when he suggested some “aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.” Others pointed the misogyny finger at Latino men.

Pundits went all in on sexism and racism tipping the scale in Trump’s favor after last November’s election.

The problem is, identity politics don’t matter as much to voters as they do to campaigns.

A Pew Research Center poll released last year asked Americans how important it is that a woman be elected president in their lifetime, and found that only 18% of U.S. adults said this is extremely or very important to them. Some 64% said it is not too important or not at all so, or that the president’s gender doesn’t matter.

Democrats missed the memo.

“But we were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, Screw it, let’s just do it. But knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk,” Harris wrote of rejecting Buttigieg.

The real risk was believing voters would check the box for Harris because of who she was, not what she was promoting, which was essentially four more years of the very Biden policies the electorate was rejecting.

All this is more than just a thorough look in the rear-view. Both Harris and Buttigieg are scoping out presidential bids in 2028. Buttigieg has proven an effective communicator, a big plus for the party.

Communication has never been Harris’ strong suit.

This is more than just a cautionary tale for Democrats who want to win races. It should be a wake-up call for candidates to listen to what Americans want, what they’re worried about, and what they hope their futures will look like.

We want solutions to America’s problems, and a clear path forward for a prosperous, safe country for all citizens. And we’ll vote for whoever makes the best case for delivering on those promises, no matter who they are.

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