Whitmer says she won't run for president. Democrats better hope she's joking. | Opinion
What Democrats need is to reconnect with voters, and Gretchen Whitmer is among the few Democrats willing – or able – to give the party what it needs.
For nearly as long as she's been governor, Gretchen Whitmer has been considered a presidential hopeful. And for nearly as long as she’s been considered a presidential hopeful, Michigan’s governor has been telling anybody who'd listen that she's actually not.
When an interviewer at a Detroit Economic Club forum in April asked Whitmer what she's looking forward to in 2026, when she's term-limited out of office, the governor didn't miss a beat: "Retiring."
Democrats better hope Whitmer was joking, because she may be the party's best hope of reclaiming the White House in 2028.
Why Whitmer and not Buttigieg, Shapiro or Beshear?
We could talk here about the other guys likely to seek the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, a list that includes, at minimum:
- Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg
- California Gov. Gavin Newsom
- Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker
- Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro
- Colorado Gov. Jared Polis
- Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear
And it will surely grow over the next three years.
But I think it’s a better idea to talk about Whitmer.
She's a successful purple-state governor (a recent Impact Research poll puts her approval rating at a whopping 63%) with decades of legislative, policymaking and executive experience. She speaks with intelligence and sensitivity on subjects from manufacturing to motherhood. She’s got a knack for focusing on substantive issues that offer common ground, like funding our schools and fixing our roads.
At 53, she's youthful and energetic ‒ but seasoned and experienced ‒ in a party with a surfeit of octogenarians, and she's a woman in a party whose voters, at times, seem disinclined toward white male candidates, at least at the state and congressional levels.
Whitmer is an effective advocate for the causes she champions, and, as a mom who seemed to effortlessly balance raising two daughters, now grown, and leading the 10th most populous state in the nation, she's an aspirational figure for thousands of Michigan women who can't remember if they put money in their kid's school lunch account. (OK, it's me. I'm Michigan women.)
Whitmer was elected and reelected by wide margins, and her approval rating has never dipped below 50%, which is, in these sorry times, a real achievement.
"She is a superb retail politician, and a really unique one," said pollster Richard Czuba of the Glengariff Group. "You watch her work a rope line, and she makes everyone feel seen. And she comes from a state that’s a must-win for a Democrat."
American voters like centrists – and Whitmer does what voters expect
There's no denying that her willingness to work with President Donald Trump has disappointed some Democrats who would prefer blanket opposition to hopeful collaboration.
That centrist thing, Czuba said, is really only a problem for the far flanks of both parties ‒ and they're not the swing voters who decide elections, in Michigan or in the United States.
"We did this question last year: Should an elected official cross party lines and negotiate with the other party to get something done, or should elected officials stick to the party’s position and stand up for it?" said Czuba, of a survey of likely voters for the Detroit Regional Chamber ahead of the 2024 Mackinac Policy Conference. "It was 70% to 19%."
The 19%, he said, were on the far right and the far left.
"She’s doing exactly what most voters expect of their leaders," Czuba said. "The governor understands the middle in a way that few people understand independent, centrist voters. That’s one of her strengths. She pays attention to the center. In a purple state like Michigan, if you don’t, you lose. That’s how Democrats can win nationally.
"They need to pay attention to the center, because if you don’t, you lose."
Gretchen Whitmer doesn't start fights, but she can finish them
This is who Whitmer has always been.
Her political sensibility is best described as "cheerfully determined,” and if there were an Olympic event in keeping your cool, this lady would hold the gold medal.
As late as January 2018, powerful Democratic men – including Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan – were working to replace Whitmer on the Democratic gubernatorial ballot. Her response?
"I’m staying focused on running a campaign that can win, so we can get Michigan back to being a state our kids will stay in when they graduate," Whitmer told me that year. "I’m eager to build the coalition. … I'm eager to work with anyone who wants to solve problems."
In 2019, when then-Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, a Republican, called her "batshit crazy" to a crowd of supporters, or said in 2021 that he and the GOP legislature had "spanked" Whitmer "hard" on the budget and appointments, the governor wasn't mad, just disappointed: "I think that we deserve better, frankly, but I’m not going to spend my energy there because I’ve got a lot of important things that I’m working on that the people of our state need us to be all-successful on."
In her most recent State of the State address, with Republicans back at the helm of the House of Representatives, Whitmer stayed on collaborative message: “I took an oath to serve the people of Michigan ‒ all the people. That's my commitment to you no matter who is in the White House or on the other side of the table in Lansing. Yes, I do hope to find common ground with President Trump and work with the Democratic Senate and Republican House on our shared priorities.”
Whitmer doesn’t start fights, but she’s not a pushover. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she went toe-to-toe with Trump, who dubbed her "that woman from Michigan," and in 2022 she led the charge to enshrine reproductive rights in the state constitution after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
She's a staunch supporter of civil rights, women's rights and LBGTQ+ rights, and she has made it clear that won’t change.
What does Whitmer's 'folder incident' at the White House mean?
The Econ Club interview last month came on the heels of a rough week for Michigan's governor.
A meeting with Trump, set to discuss a new fighter mission for Selfridge Air Force Base and invasive Asian carp in the Great Lakes, had taken a turn: After exchanging pleasant remarks with Whitmer and Michigan’s Republican House Speaker Matt Hall, a wave of cameras poured into the Oval Office as Trump signed two executive orders authorizing politically motivated investigations of staffers who served in his first term.
An uncomfortable Whitmer edged away from the action, at one point holding a folder in front of her face as a photographer snapped a picture. The image, published on April 12 by The New York Times, reverberated through the political world. ("What was going through my mind at that moment?" she said to the Econ Club interviewer. "'I don't want my picture taken.'")
I got dozens of texts the day the picture published, mostly from political insiders who saw The Folder Incident as Whitmer's Howard Dean scream. (Which, of course, is not actually what ended 2004 candidate Dean's presidential ambitions ... but we're still talking about it, 21 years later.)
As the story unfolded, some of the Democratic insiders and national pundits who had been enamored with the notion of Whitmer as a presidential contender soured on the governor. The honeymoon, it seemed, was over.
I didn't feel so great about The Folder Incident myself. It was unpleasant to watch a strong female governor treated that way, and the image, I thought, would reverberate.
But outside the political bubble, it was a different story.
When I floated the suggestion that this might tank Whitmer's presidential future past a friend who's not knee-deep in politics, my friend was skeptical. "Hmm. I guess we'll see. The 2028 election is a long way away," she said. "Some people will just see it as, 'I have nothing to do with this.'"
My friend isn't alone. In an Epic-MRA poll conducted between April 28 through May 3 – after the Oval Office meeting – 52% of Michiganders said they approved of Whitmer's performance as governor, consistent with previous polls. In the same survey, just 41% said the same of Trump.
A few weeks later, that new fighter mission at Selfridge Whitmer went to the White House to discuss – it happened.
Democrats need to reconnect with voters
Most folks in jobs like mine have responded to Whitmer's repeated assertions that she's into the job she has, not the one everyone thinks she wants, with mild eye-rolling to outright scoffing.
But I believe her. When Whitmer says she's not running in 2028, it doesn't sound coy. It's been a punishing seven years, complete with a pandemic and a murder/kidnapping plot that an astounding number of people somehow see as a punchline or a put-up, and it's easy to imagine that she's ready for a break.
Still, if I were a Democratic strategist, I'd be wondering whether I could persuade Whitmer to change her mind.
Democrats want to win, but winning elections isn't just about numbers on the board. Voters are people, people whose lives are affected by who sits in the governor's mansion, or in the Oval Office.
What Democrats need is to reconnect with voters, and Whitmer is among the few Democrats willing – or able – to give the party what it needs.
Nancy Kaffer is the editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press, where this column originally appeared. Contact her at nkaffer@freepress.com.