Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old openly gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who served in the Navy during the war in Afghanistan, announced on Wednesday that he is launching an exploratory committee for a 2020 presidential bid.

Buttigieg made the announcement in an email to supporters and in a video posted online where he lays out his message of generational change centered on three values: Freedom, security and democracy. In that video, Buttigieg leans into how he took over South Bend when he was 29 years old and claims he turned around what had been referred to as a "dying
city."

"There's a new generation of voices emerging in our country, walking away from the politics of the past and ready to deliver on our priorities. There is no 'again' in the real world; that's not a bad thing," Buttigieg says in the video. "We are ready for a fresh start."