Chart topper

Want visual proof gay presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg’s star is on the rise? You’ve got it.

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The name on everybody’s lips in politics right now is… Pete Bootigedge. No. Pete Beutigeg. No. Pete Buttajeej.

OK so it’s extremely difficult to pronounce out South Bend Mayor and Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg‘s name.

There’s even a Washington Post video dedicated to news anchors botching it:

NY Mag’s The Cut offered this handy lesson for all the visual learners among us:

His last name, Buttigieg, it IS NOT PRONOUNCED:

• Butt-ee-geeg

• Butt-i-geg

• Smith

• Butt-i-jeeg

It IS PRONOUNCED:

• Boot-a-judge

• Buddha-judge

But no matter how his name is coming off people’s lips, there’s one undeniable fact — it’s coming off their fingertips even more.

Google just released two very interesting charts showing the trends in search results for the Democratic 2020 field.

Related: Yes, Pete Buttigieg met his husband on the apps and, no, he’s not ashamed to tell you which one

In the first chart, you see how very crowded the race is right now. The second shows how gay South Bend mayor Pete Buddha-judge has spiked in web searches.

Take a look:

This certainly jives with the anecdotal buzz we’ve been seeing around Boot-a-judge.

And that has translated into dollar bills. In his first quarter of running for president, the until-now unknown mayor has raised an impressive $7 million.

“This is a big number for us,” Buttigieg wrote to supporters in an email. “We are not part of the national political machine. We started with just about 20,000 people on our email list, and not many people even knew who I was.”

Related: We need to talk about Pete Buttigieg’s husband’s Twitter page

The more voters get acquainted with Buttigieg, the more they seem to like his refreshing candor and intellectual approach to the issues. In other words, the exact opposite of what we have now.

The same affection goes for his husband, Chasten, whose somewhat sassy Twitter page has become a source of endless delight.

True to form, Chasten had a solid response to the Google trend charts, conjuring Miley Cyrus:

In a political climate that often has us searching for the nearest sand hill to bury our heads in, we can definitely get into following the Buttigiegs on whatever path their destinies lie.

Find Dan Tracer on Instagram.