Wait – isn't the Democrat Party looking for a few good women? Exclusively?
And isn't it a little early to disclaim interest in a presidential primary contest?
Nevertheless, Gretchen Whitmer has done exactly that. In an interview with a Fox affiliate in Detroit, the governor of Michigan declared that the Democrats won't have Whitmer to kick around in 2027-8:
“I will not be one of them in 2028…”
— Roop Raj (@rooprajfox2) May 28, 2026
Governor Whitmer on possible presidential run in our one on one from Mackinac. pic.twitter.com/6vjZrJvI0R
Michigan Live picked up on the clip:
During a Thursday, May 28, interview with Fox 2 Detroit, the term-limited Democratic governor said she still has the energy, but wants to wait and think before jumping into another race headfirst.
“I do think about it a bit,” Whitmer said in a 45-second clip posted by the Detroit outlet Thursday morning.
“I’ve got a lot of energy,” she said. “I will be 55 when I leave office, so I want to have impact. I want to do good work.” ...
When it was pointed out that there’s still time until 2028, Whitmer agreed, but said she thinks there will be a “robust group of people running for president.
“I will not be one of them in 2028, I can tell you that,” she said.
Well ... why not? Whitmer has a good rapport with voters in Michigan, one of the states Democrats can't afford to lose in presidential elections. A recent poll shows her with a 52.5% job approval rating, about 15 points higher than at the start of her first term. Morning Consult put her at 60/34 in February, slightly behind Andy Beshear in Kentucky and Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania among notable Democrat governors. Shapiro runs another must-win state for Democrats, but he's male and Jewish, two qualities that Democrats don't value much these days.
Whitmer has a national presence too, or at least she had one until the time she got passed over in the Great Kamala Anointing of 2024. Ever since Harris lost, Whitmer has focused much more on Michigan rather than a national platform, perhaps worrying that she'll get tarred with the crazies running the party these days. That may also relate to Whitmer's refusal to back Hamas in the war started by its October 7 massacres. Whitmer initially claimed to "unequivocally" support Israel after the IDF responded to the war Hamas started, and then later refused to take sides in the Israel-Hamas debate taking place in the Democrat Party. She also refused to use the word "genocide" when it came to Israel's invasion of Gaza.
Whitmer may realize that this leaves her with little room in the current version of the Democrat Party. Why bother to run in this environment as a (relatively) moderate and successful Democrat governor when the activists and donors want radicals? The reaction to the aborted DNC autopsy must have been instructive in this regard, when the biggest failing progressives saw was that the report never mentioned "Gaza," rather than the fact that the DNC pushed a senile old man into a campaign and then anointed an idiot to replace him.
However, Whitmer's apparent disinterest doesn't leave too many options for the self-proclaimed Women's Party. Michelle Lujan Grisham might step up, but she's a disaster on issues like crime, the Second Amendment, and the border. Other female governors run deep-blue states that Democrats would already carry.
But is Whitmer really checking out, or making a play for attention? It looks like a "draft me" pose rather than a serious withdrawal, perhaps hoping that her absence will create a strong contrast to the Seven Dwarves aspect of the current Democrat field. That perception got amplified by a walkback last night:
Hours after announcing she wouldn’t be running for president in 2028, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said she needed to “correct the record.”
“I never thought I would run for governor, so I guess I should know better,” she said.
“Never say never,” she added.
Maybe a "chase me, chase me" strategy will work. It might have in the Democrat Party of 30 years ago. In today's Democratic Socialist-controlled party, the radicals may have been happy to have Whitmer out of the way, and hope that Shapiro turns out to be as cooperative.
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