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Governor Gretchen Whitmer returned to the national stage this week, even if she insists she’s not looking for a bigger, brighter spotlight.
Her unanimous selection this past weekend as the next vice chair of the Democratic Governors Association puts her right in the middle of the party’s national strategy-setting heading into the high stakes 2026 midterm elections. DGA vice chair is no sinecure. It’s a real role with real responsibilities: fundraising, advising campaigns, and traveling the country to support Democratic governors and candidates.
Over the past few months, we’ve seen a flurry of reporting that paints a complicated picture: Whitmer, the governor who’s been quietly pulling back from national attention. Whitmer, the Democrat Donald Trump apparently likes working with. Whitmer, the potential 2028 presidential contender who may or may not actually want that job.
It’s all to say, the new DGA position comes as Whitmer is sending mixed - or maybe just carefully calibrated - signals about her political future.
And it all comes back around to the question that folks in Michigan - and across the country - continue to ask: Does term-limited Whitmer want to run for president in 2028?
That's the “million dollar question," veteran political reporter Zack Stanton of MS NOW told us this week on the IJP podcast.
“There’s no upside to saying, ‘no, I’m not interested in being president.’ But there is a huge upside to saying… ‘maybe’ or at least keeping quiet about it,” Stanton explained.
Editorial Page Editor Nancy Kaffer of the Detroit Free Press told us the speculation is unavoidable. “Anytime you ask her if she's running for president, she says ‘no’... The only thing she has done to stoke people's belief that she is running for president is to continue to exist.”
In other words: the whispers maybe aren’t coming from her. They’re coming from the political ecosystem that surrounds her. (We should also mention here that almost every Michigan governor falls into the speculation spotlight as a presidential or vice presidential prospect. But the national attention and intrigue surrounding Whitmer sure seems different.)
“I think what Gretchen Whitmer has done is sort of maintain strategic ambiguity here. She's keeping her options sort of genuinely open,” Stanton noted.
And then there’s the eyebrow-raising relationship between Whitmer and President Donald Trump, which at least complicates the possibility of winning the Democratic nomination in 2028, but also could burnish her credentials as a nominee who would appeal to independent voters.
“It has not escaped my notice that Trump has not even twitched towards sending the National Guard into Detroit… We are not seeing senior citizens being body slammed on sidewalks… So, I mean, she is again navigating these currents in a way that may not be what the base wants to hear, but is what… may be more appealing to” swing voters, Kaffer notes.
So where does this leave us?
Perhaps right where Whitmer wants.
As Stanton put it, Whitmer “is such a Rorschach test where you can project on her whatever you want… that strategic ambiguity is where she lives.”
By serving as DGA vice chair, she gains a national platform, a national network, and a national donor base. All without committing to anything. She’s in the game without having to be “the main character,” Stanton said.
The ambiguity? The national attention? The questions about her future? Those aren’t going away.
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Have questions about Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s future? Or, just want to let us know what you want more of (less of?) in the newsletter? We always want to hear from you! Shoot us an email at politics@michiganpublic.org!
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What we’re talking about at the dinner table
This isn’t over: Democrats are plotting their next move after Michigan House Republicans used a rarely invoked legislative power to carve $645 million out of the state budget. The dramatic cuts sparked fury and frustration as Democrats were unable to block the obscure, unicameral action that does not require concurrence from the Senate or Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The GOP-led House Appropriations Committee voted to stop payments on money allocated for multiyear projects that was unspent at the end of the last fiscal year. House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) said it’s about putting fiscal restraints on Democrats’ spending that was adopted during their brief era of complete control of the state Capitol. Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) responded, “There’s a special place in hell for someone willing to yank money away from moms and babies 15 days before Christmas.” Governor Gretchen Whitmer weighed in with a statement that included, “Even Ebenezer Scrooge wouldn’t dream of such cruel cuts, like eliminating support for students in Flint impacted by the water crisis and survivors of child sexual assault.” Hall says some of the spending could be restored following budget hearings, but much is the “waste, fraud and abuse” that has been targeted by House Republicans.
Pot on path to the Supremes: The new wholesale tax on recreational marijuana is on a path to taking effect on January 1 and the state’s cannabis industry is on a path to the Michigan Court of Appeals, and probably the Michigan Supreme Court, to stop that from happening. Michigan Court of Claims Judge Sima Patel ruled Monday in a widely awaited decision to uphold the controversial 24% wholesale tax on cannabis as part of a road funding plan adopted by the Legislature and signed by Governor Gretchen Whitmer earlier this year. Patel agreed with the state’s position that the new tax is not an amendment to the 2018 recreational marijuana initiative adopted by voters. The Michigan Constitution requires three-fourths supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature to amend voter-approved initiatives. The cannabis tax passed as part of this year's state budget did not achieve that vote threshold. The Michigan Cannabis Industry Association said the notion that the Legislature could adopt a new tax without changing the substance of the initiative rings hollow to marijuana businesses poised to go under if they’re saddled with the wholesale tax on top of the retail tax.
Speaking of Supremes: Another House-Senate feud has landed (figuratively) at the steps of the Michigan Supreme Court. Legislative Republicans have asked the high court (how did we not fit that into the marijuana story?) to resolve a first-of-its-kind separation-of-powers dispute that has been playing out for most of the year. The question is whether a court can order the current Legislature to send bills that were adopted in the last session to Governor Gretchen Whitmer to sign or veto. The House GOP this week asked the state’s highest court to overturn a lower court ruling that all bills adopted by both chambers must be sent to the governor’s desk. The case centers around nine bills adopted last year while the House and Senate were controlled by Democrats. But the bills were never transmitted to the governor before Republicans took control of the House in January. House Republicans say the previous Democratic majority whiffed on getting those bills to the governor and it’s not up to the new GOP majority to fix that. The Senate Democrats argue the Michigan Constitution says all bills adopted by both chambers must go to the governor. The bills at the center of the case include measures to exempt public assistance payments from debt collection, allow Detroit historical museums to seek voter approval of a millage, and place corrections officers in the same pension system as the Michigan State Police. The Supreme Court is not required to take the case and is not bound by any specific timeline to make a decision. If the court declines the case, the Michigan Court of Appeals decision stands.
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Yours in political nerdiness,
Rick Pluta & Zoe Clark
Co-hosts, It’s Just Politics
