Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Sunday he continues to support adding seats to the Supreme Court as part of an overhaul he claims would make the institution less partisan.
During an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker on September 13, Welker asked Buttigieg whether he supports adding seats to the Supreme Court, noting that he had previously supported increasing the number of justices from nine to fifteen.
“Some Democrats, like former Vice President Kamala Harris, have called to expand the court,” Welker said. “As you know, in the past, you’ve even supported increasing the number of justices from nine to fifteen. As we sit here today, Mr. Secretary, do you support adding seats to the Supreme Court, and how many?”
“Yes, I talked about this years ago when I was running for president,” Buttigieg responded. “At the time, it was a pretty lonely position. People were looking at me funny when I was talking about reforming the Supreme Court.”
“I think with the years that have come in between, a lot more people are onto that idea because it has become a nakedly partisan institution,” Buttigieg continued.
“And I want to be clear: the idea is not to just add justices for its own sake. The idea is to reform the institution to make it less partisan,” he said.
Buttigieg did not specify how many seats he currently supports adding to the Supreme Court.
Harris addressed Supreme Court expansion during a CNN town hall in October 2024 after an attendee asked whether she would support increasing the court to 12 justices. Harris said Americans were increasingly losing confidence in the court, pointing to the conduct of some justices and the Dobbs decision, and said, “I do believe that there should be some kind of reform of the court, and we can study what that actually looks like.”
Former Attorney General Eric Holder has also supported considering Supreme Court expansion. In comments highlighted by President Donald Trump in December 2025, Holder called the court a “broken institution” and said that if Democrats secured a governing trifecta in 2028, reforms including potentially expanding the court should be considered. Trump responded that such a move would “destroy our Constitution” and called for eliminating the Senate filibuster. In 2020 and 2021, Holder supported adding seats and has also advocated for 18-year term limits for justices.
During a May 2026 town hall in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Buttigieg also called for replacing the Electoral College with a national popular vote system, saying the person who receives the most votes should become president. He said the change would encourage Democrats to campaign in places such as Oklahoma and Republicans to campaign in places such as Brooklyn. Trump won both the Electoral College and the national popular vote in 2024.
Buttigieg has registered near the top of early 2028 Democrat presidential polling. A University of New Hampshire poll released in July found Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) at 22 percent among Democrat primary voters and Buttigieg at 21 percent, followed by Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) at nine percent, California Gov. Gavin Newsom at eight percent, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) at six percent, Harris at five percent, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro at two percent, and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker at one percent.
A separate Public Sentiment Institute poll released in August found Buttigieg receiving 24.2 percent among likely Democrat primary voters in Michigan, while 21.7 percent were undecided and Harris received 5.1 percent. The same report also noted Harris’s outreach ahead of a possible 2028 campaign, Trump’s comments about a potential Vice President JD Vance/Secretary of State Marco Rubio ticket, and Democrat voters’ responses to questions about candidates accepting contributions from pro-Israel political action committees.
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