The Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, said she would not run for the Democratic nomination for president this year even if Joe Biden cedes to growing pressure and steps aside.
“It’s a distraction more than anything,” Whitmer told the Associated Press, in an interview to promote her new memoir, True Gretch, which will be published on Tuesday.
“I don’t like seeing my name in articles like that because I’m totally focused on governing and campaigning for the [Biden-Kamala Harris] ticket.”
Whitmer was referring to a Politico report last week, which said that after Biden’s disastrous debate against Donald Trump in Atlanta in June, Whitmer called the president’s re-election campaign chairperson, Jen O’Malley Dillon, to say Michigan – a battleground state – was no longer winnable.
In her immediate response to that report, Whitmer said she was “proud to support Joe Biden as our nominee and I am behind him 100% in the fight to defeat Donald Trump”.
Politico said its source was “someone close to a potential 2028 Whitmer rival for the Democratic presidential nomination”.
Speaking to the AP, Whitmer said: “I think it’s frustrating that there are news outlets that will publish something that a potential future opponent’s staff person would say.”
Few doubt Whitmer will run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. Other governors thought likely to run for that nomination include Wes Moore of Maryland, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Gavin Newsom of California and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.
Biden is attempting to quash calls for him to quit from those who believe that at 81 he is too old and infirm to campaign and govern effectively. The volume of those concerns amplified considerably after his 27 June debate with his presidential predecessor.
On Monday, Biden lashed out at “elites in the party”, telling MSNBC: “If any of these guys don’t think I should run, run against me. Go ahead. Announce for president – challenge me at the convention!”
Whitmer says she will not do that but her ambitions remain on display.
As the Guardian revealed last week, her book ends with a passage from Theodore Roosevelt’s famous “Man in the Arena” speech, about the need for leaders to take action.
Speaking in Paris in 1910, the 26th president said in part: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.”
In her book, Whitmer adds: “Though these words were written more than a hundred years ago, they’re just as true today – except for two things. The ‘man’ may be a woman. And she may just be wearing fuchsia.”
