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Gretchen Whitmer: The Democrats’ tough-talking, glamorous answer to Ron DeSantis
Boasting a general's mind and film-star looks, the rising star has been likened to the Republican hopeful thanks to her midterms win
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Dressed in a bright fuchsia blazer and matching trademark lipstick, Gretchen Whitmer beamed as she addressed her huge swell of supporters late into election night.
“I told you we would focus on the kitchen table issues: drinking water, affordable healthcare, and of course, fixing the damn roads!” the Michigan governor said, fist in the air as she celebrated a double-digit victory over her Donald Trump-backed Republican rival.
The 51-year-old had just triumphed over a Maga candidate in a key battleground state and, in doing so, gave the Democratic Party a blueprint for how to take the industrial Midwest, and with it, the White House in a post-Biden America.
Joe Biden, who will be 82 at the 2024 presidential election, has yet to officially declare a bid. Some have speculated that an age-conscious Mr Biden might be content being a one-term president.
Others believe he will run, buoyed by better-than-expected midterm results and a self-appointed mandate to stop Mr Trump.
Ms Whitmer, described by The New York Times as a candidate who “thinks like a general, looks like a ’40s film star and talks like she’s ice fishing for muskie”, has officially denied any interest in running against the president, but it has done little to stop the Washington rumour mill.
Political website The Hill recently ranked her fourth on its list of Democrats who should throw their hat in the ring, behind the president; Kamala Harris, the vice-president; and Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary – making her the top choice outside the administration.
Ms Whitmer has been a popular figure in Michigan for years. She climbed the political ladder, serving in the state’s house of representatives from 2001 to 2006 and in the Michigan senate from 2006 to 2015, all of which spent in the minority.
She first ran for governor in 2018 and won by a landslide, later assuming office in Jan 2019.
Ms Whitmer just missed out on being Mr Biden’s running mate two years later, with some insiders suggesting that she was even the president’s favourite.
She has been called the Democrats’ answer to Ron DeSantis, both hugely popular incumbents from purple states with an outsized role in national elections. The pair won with the help of a broad coalition of both urban and suburban voters, blue and white collar.
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While some Democrats ran nationalised campaigns, choosing to level attacks on Mr Trump, Ms Whitmer stayed local.
Her focus on “fixing the damn roads” transcended the usual topics of partisan rancour.
“People want problem solvers, not culture warriors,” she said of others’ decision to concentrate on culture war issues such as the teaching of gender and race in schools.
As a Midwesterner, analysts believe that she would have more national appeal than another slated presidential would-be.
California governor Gavin Newsom, much like San Franciscan Ms Harris, has been dismissed in conservative circles as being part of a coastal elite, out of touch with Middle America. One pundit described Ms Whitmer’s appeal as “Pabst Blue Ribbon with just the right measure of merlot.”
White working-class Michigonians, once the backbone of the Democratic coalition, fled to the Republican Party in the years of economic decline in Detroit. Mr Trump narrowly carried the state in 2016.
In her first term as governor, Ms Whitmer landed the largest economic investment from General Motors that the country had ever seen. The Detroit-based company committed $7 billion (£5.8 billion) in electric car manufacturing, creating 4,000 new jobs.
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“She’s the only Democrat I’ve seen placate the business lobby and the environmentalists. Seriously, nobody else can do it,” said Lee Chatfield, a Republican House speaker, who has locked horns with Ms Whitmer over the years.
“I’ve seen her sit down with CEOs in suits, then have beers with people from the upper peninsula.”
Republicans for Whitmer, a group of 150 prominent local business leaders, lawyers and former lawmakers, came out in support of the governor, praising her for bringing back jobs to the state and working across the aisle to get bills passed.
In a matter of four years, she helped turn the state completely blue, with Democrats now controlling all three branches of state government for the first time in nearly four decades.
In the state legislature, she was one of few women in an institution long dominated by a “good-ol-boy” mentality.
“I’ve had a lot of male mentors,” she once told Politico, recalling how she spent evenings throwing back beers at capitol watering holes. “One of them would tell me, ‘Try to make fun of your opponents on occasion. Don’t get mad at what they say’.”
It would be tested years later on a more national stage when Mr Trump singled out the governor for her Covid-19 policy.
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Ms Whitmer, presiding over a state with one of the highest death tolls, issued one of the strictest stay-at-home orders in the nation. It made her deeply unpopular among conservatives, who drew up a petition for her impeachment.
Mr Trump called on his followers to “Liberate Michigan” from Gretchen “Half-Whitmer”.
She became a boogeyman on the Right, and was the target of a kidnap effort by members of a Right-wing paramilitary group.
In the end, the vote in Michigan largely came down to the issue of abortion. Even before the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, Ms Whitmer was working to codify legislation on statewide abortion access.
Democratic candidates were told to pivot their campaigns to address rising inflation, which frequently topped voters’ list of concerns. But for Ms Whitmer, the choice between abortion and the economy was a false one.
“I frequently got the question ‘Should we be talking about the economy or abortion?’” said Ms Whitmer, wearing a Bans Off Our Bodies pin on her lapel. “Anyone who thinks that those two issues are not aligned doesn’t have a uterus.”
Her messaging resonated, with suburban women and young voters coming out in unprecedented numbers to ensure Ms Whitmer defeated Tudor Dixon, her pro-life rival.
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After watching the race in Michigan, seen as a litmus test for presidential elections, Democrats are quietly confident that even an octogenarian Mr Biden could beat Mr Trump in a rematch.
However, there is concern that he would not fare as well against a much younger, fresher Republican nominee like Mr DeSantis. A recent Marquette University Law School poll had the Florida governor narrowly beating Mr Biden in a presidential matchup 39 per cent to 37.
A small, but growing, wing of the party has called for Mr Biden to make room for a new generation of leaders, such as Ms Whitmer.
David Axelrod, who was a senior adviser to Barack Obama, is also a part-time Michigan resident. He said there was “no doubt” that her name would be near the top when her party considers future candidates.
He said: “That was an impressive win on difficult terrain, but she’s proven herself to be smart and resilient. For a woman, it’s tough to be strong and yet broadly accepted. And she seems to have mastered that.”