President Biden “can win Michigan”
Lansing – Governor Gretchen Whitmer sought to reiterate her support for President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee Monday after he stumbled in last week’s debate against Republican Donald Trump, saying she is “100 percent” convinced Biden can win Michigan in November.
Whitmer, who is considered a rising star among Democrats and is co-chair of Biden’s re-election campaign, issued a statement after national news outlet Politico suggested she may have said Michigan was “no longer winnable for Biden” after he made a series of missteps in the televised debate against Trump.
A Whitmer aide, who asked not to be identified, said the comment, which was shared by Politico with “someone close to a potential Whitmer rival in 2028,” was false. On social media platform X, Whitmer added that anyone who claimed she was “saying we can’t win Michigan is talking bullshit.”
“I am proud to endorse Joe Biden as our nominee, and I stand 100% behind him in the fight to defeat Donald Trump,” Whitmer said in a statement Monday. “Not only do I believe Joe can win Michigan, I know he can because he has the revenue: He has reduced health care costs, brought back manufacturing jobs, and is committed to restoring the reproductive freedom women lost under Donald Trump.”
Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell of Ann Arbor said she spoke to Whitmer about her phone call Friday with Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon and reiterated that the governor never said Michigan was “unwinnable.”
“We know what needs to be done to win Michigan,” Dingell said. “She’s doing everything she can. She’s working her ass off.”
Dingell also criticized Whitmer’s rival, who tried to misdirect Whitmer’s conversation with Dillon in an attempt to “sting” the Michigan governor in her second term. “Women don’t like people going at each other,” Dingell said.
Biden’s lackluster performance in his first debate against Trump in the 2024 campaign has prompted some political pundits and the New York Times editorial board to call for the 81-year-old Biden to resign. They have floated Whitmer and others, including Vice President Kamala Harris and California Governor Gavin Newsom, as possible successors to Biden if the nomination comes up for grabs at the party’s convention in August.
Republicans in Michigan loudly trumpeted that comment, which someone in Politico on Monday attributed to Whitmer.
“Michigan people have been feeling the effects of Biden’s failed presidency for years, as evidenced by the looming threat of his electric vehicle agenda and the harsh reality that wages are no longer as high as they were under President Trump,” said Victoria LaCivita, spokeswoman for the Trump campaign in Michigan.
“Having seen the clear difference between strength and weakness, even Whitmer knows that Democrats are doomed in Michigan – just like across the country.”
Reducing donor pressure
Biden, however, has shown no signs that he is seriously considering dropping out of the race. And Democratic politicians in Michigan have dismissed the idea that Biden might not be their party’s presidential nominee just over four months before Election Day.
A leading Michigan Democrat who has spoken to Whitmer in recent days said Monday that the governor was trying to quell pressure from donors to get her to enter the race.
The Democratic leader, who spoke to the Detroit News on condition of anonymity, said Whitmer is so focused on her support for Biden and Harris that she will not address the question of whether she can replace Biden on the ballot if the president resigns, disappointing more than just some donors.
Those donors are concerned that Whitmer, unlike Newsom, has no plan to win delegates to vote for her before the Aug. 19-22 Democratic Convention in Chicago, the source said. But that lack of preparation, the source said, is another indication that she does not want to take that step.
Michael Radtke, a Democratic political consultant from Macomb County, Michigan’s third-largest county, said Biden remains the best choice to fight Trump.
“At this point, you will go to war with the army you have,” Radtke said. “We are trying to save democracy.”
Jonathan Kinloch, a Wayne County commissioner and chairman of the 13th Congressional District Democratic Party, also said people need to stop “chattering and blathering” about the Democratic nomination. The delegates who decide the nomination belong to Biden, Kinloch said.
“This nomination will be taken from his dead hands. … Period,” Kinloch said of Biden.
In 2020, Biden defeated Trump, the incumbent president, winning Michigan by 3 percentage points, 51% to 48%. In a campaign speech in North Carolina on Friday, Biden vowed that he could serve as president for another four years. The crowd repeatedly chanted “four more years.”
Republicans exploit conflict
Trump won Michigan in 2016 by 10,703 votes over Democrat Hillary Clinton. The Republicans’ unexpected victory eight years ago meant that Republican candidates defeated Democratic candidates in the statewide vote. The impact was felt in Macomb County, where Democrats lost her long-time county clerk post by 635 votes to Republican upstart and political newcomer Karen Spranger, who was later removed from office for falsifying her immigration papers.
But Trump eventually clashed with Whitmer, a former state representative who rose to national prominence when she clashed with Trump over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
The second-term governor has repeatedly said she expects a close race between Biden and Trump in Michigan this fall.
Republican strategists see an opportunity to put vulnerable Democrats on the defensive. National Republican Senatorial Committee candidate in Pennsylvania Dave McCormick has taken out an ad attacking Democratic Senator Bob Casey for defending Biden, saying he is “ready” to take the job and that he has confidence in Biden’s leadership.
“Casey knew about Biden’s condition,” the ad says. “When will Casey finally tell the truth?”
The National Republican Congressional Committee released a memo on Monday citing the Politico article and asking whether Democrats in the U.S. House swing districts share Biden’s or Whitmer’s alleged assessment of whether he can win the state.
Whitmer had previously promised to finish her four-year term as governor. Her book, “TRUE GRETCH: What I Learned About Life, Leadership and Everything in Between,” is scheduled to be released on July 9 and has already brought her a new wave of national media attention.
Biden had considered Whitmer, among others, as his running mate for 2020 before choosing Harris. During the election campaign in Michigan, the president described Whitmer as the best governor in the country.
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