Leave it to the ladies of The View to get straight to the gay question.

South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg announced last month that he is launching an exploratory committee for a 2020 presidential bid, officially confirming the start of his campaign.

If Buttigieg wins the Democratic nomination, he would become the first openly gay Democrat to run for president. Fred Karger's candidacy for the 2012 Republican nomination made him the first openly gay presidential candidate in a major political party.

"Realistically," The View co-host Joy Behar asked guest Buttigieg this week, "do you think this country is ready for a gay president?"

"Well, there’s only one way to find out," he replied, earning cheers from the studio audience.

Born in South Bend, Indiana’s fourth largest city with roughly 100,000 residents, Buttigieg, 37, is a Harvard graduate, a Rhodes scholar, and a veteran Naval lieutenant who served in Afghanistan. He was elected mayor in 2011 and, despite governing as a progressive Democrat in a very red state, was reelected for a second term.

"When I came out, it was 2015, we were in the middle of a reelection campaign," he continued. "I was ready. You’re ready when you’re ready, and I wanted to have a personal life. It was not obvious that that was going to be a safe thing to do. It was in Indiana. Mike Pence was governor at the time. And I wound up getting reelected with 80% of the vote. So I think people will evaluate you for the job that you do."

Buttigieg memorably spoke last year at the March for Our Lives sister rally in South Bend. “I don’t think younger leaders will automatically connect well with younger voters, nor do I think you have to be below a certain age to make sense,” he said. “But I do think that people are looking for something new. They’re looking for something fresh and different.”

Buttigieg married his longtime partner, teacher Chasten Glezman, last summer and celebrated with a trip to their local Pride event.

During a recent press conference, Buttigieg called his sexuality "a fact of life," describing his marriage as "the most important thing in my life."

Buttigieg came out publicly as gay in an open letter printed in the South Bend Tribune in 2015, shortly before the Supreme Court's ruling on federal marriage equality, making him Indiana's first openly gay executive and that state's highest elected official to come out.

"We Midwesterners are instinctively private to begin with, and I’m not used to viewing this as anyone else’s business," he wrote in the op-ed. "But it’s clear to me that at a moment like this, being more open about it could do some good."

The mayor was profiled in a 2016 New York Times article titled “The First Gay President?”

“This is one of the most talented young leaders in the Democratic Party,” Obama strategist David Axelrod told the Times. “And he comes from the middle of the country, where the party needs to be strengthened.”

Even before Buttigieg came out publicly, the Washington Post called him “the most interesting mayor you’ve never heard of.”

Watch Buttigieg on The View below.