On a sultry Friday afternoon in August on Fire Island, New York City’s second most popular summer weekend destination, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Deputy Minister of Transport, Mr. Chasten Buttigieg hosted the most successful fundraiser in the island’s history, according to the event’s co-chair and 18-year former treasurer of the Democratic National Committee. Andrew Tobias. He said the fundraiser raised $310,000, surpassing the $200,000 raised by a single event. Cher appeared until 2016.
The inherent contrasts of the 2024 campaign — prosecutors versus criminals, future versus past, and as the host country of the event Marius Meland shows women versus men — represented by the environment. The event takes place in the Pines, a historically gay neighborhood that serves as the setting for the 2022 romantic comedy Fire Island. On the way to the event, Secret Service agents showed up to ambush handsome guys in bikinis to smuggle Emhoff up and down the island. (“Can’t we just walk on the beach because there’s someone on the boat?” one man said, annoyed, holding what looked like a to-go cocktail.) Hanging over the entrance of Meland and his partner Mr. Kian Ooi‘s house was a large painting of an unusually sexy Narcissus. The house, designed by the Studio 54 architecture firm Bromley Caldari, was purchased with a fortune made from the sale of Law360 to LexisNexis and from Meland’s current job in AI. Buttigieg and Emhoff were dressed formally—”Business casual on a Friday on Fire Island… thanks, team!” Emhoff said with fond sarcasm—as the tanned, polo-clad crowd cheered. A campaign staffer closed the distance in an increasingly damp linen suit worn over a tank top.
According to the marketing director, attendees paid between $250 and $10,000 to be there. Barry Lowenthal(Photo booth with Emhoff and Buttigieg: $5,000, Lowenthal told VF.) Though President Biden was mentioned with gratitude—“Look what he just did!” someone said of the hostage exchange that freed Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich—everyone Vanity Fair spoke with great enthusiasm about the change in ticket prices. Nowhere is this emotional shift more evident than in the attendance numbers: the event was originally conceived as a fundraiser for President Biden, but after Vice President Kamala Harris declared his candidacy, the event was rescheduled—and sold out.
Kian Ooi admitted that he and Meland were excited by the idea of the event as a test run for Emhoff and Buttigieg as First and Second Gentlemen, should Buttigieg’s husband Pete be chosen as Harris’ running mate. But the consensus among attendees was that whichever candidate is reported to be a finalist—Pennsylvania Gov. Josh ShapiroGovernor of Minnesota Tim WalzGovernor of Kentucky Andy BeshearArizona Senator Mark Kellyor Buttigieg — would be great. “People think of decisions like this as choosing between two doors, and behind one door is a dragon and behind the other door is a million dollars,” Tobias said. “But usually it’s $800,000 behind one door and €800,000 behind the other door.”
The most visible vice presidential candidate was Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, though she has since withdrawn from the race. “Of course I wanted it to be Pete,” said 98-year-old Jack Kabin (who was lucky enough to buy a $22,000 house in the Pines in 1972). “But America is not ready for a gay vice president.” The undeniable inroads of identity politics into the election have been both negative (former President Donald Trump referred to HBCU alum and AKA Harris as “accidentally passing as black”) and positive (millions of dollars have been raised in Zoom fundraisers like “Black Men for Harris” and “White Women for Harris”). Lowenthal suggested a theme for the event: “Gays for Harris.”
For Lowenthal and other donors, the stakes of the election and the choice to support Harris are clear; when Lowenthal visited Florida in the winter, someone yelled the f-slur at him. At the Fire Island event, Buttigieg told a story about the 24-hour notice he and Pete received before finding out they were adopting their twins: While their son Gus was on a ventilator in the early hours of his life, Emhoff and Vice President Harris FaceTimed into the children’s hospital to talk to the Buttigieg family. The couple became close during the 2020 primaries despite being on opposite sides of Team Pete and Team KHive, and Harris administered the oath of office to Pete Buttigieg for his 2021 cabinet appointment. Emhoff reminded the crowd that he has been a lawyer for 30 years and that a threat to Griswold and the promise of privacy—and the accompanying right to “do whatever you want in your home with the person you love,” as Emhoff put it, including marrying them—was presaged in the affirmative action decision. Dobbs written by Justice Clarence Thomas.
