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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is one of the nation’s most endangered governors, and her position as Michigan’s top executive has added import in a time of election instability. Due to Michigan’s importance as an Upper Midwest swing state, Democratic and progressive donors should be paying attention to Whitmer’s race and donating to the candidate.
What becomes of Whitmer’s re-election fight will be a bellwether for Republican tactics over the next two election cycles. The GOP is likely to invest heavily in defeating Whitmer, an outcome which would make it easier for the state’s Republicans—who control both houses of the legislature—to engage in election subversion in 2024. Donors should realize that their dollars for Whitmer will do more than help get the Michigan governor re-elected; they will be helping to shut down attempts by the GOP to overturn the next election. That’s also a good reason to give to the campaigns of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who are also up for re-election in vital contests.
Michigan’s purple-state politics mean that progressives donating to Whitmer will have to accept that their dollars aren’t necessarily going to someone whose values line up perfectly with their own. Whitmer, the daughter of a former Blue Cross Blue Shield CEO, is opposed to Medicare for All, for example. But she is a proponent of legal cannabis, a strong supporter of abortion rights, and took aggressive and necessary public health measures to combat COVID in the face of widespread right-wing resistance, including an armed protest at the state Capitol Building. Progressive groups in the state like Progress Michigan have her back.
Whitmer is in a relatively strong position, with a big fundraising haul so far while Republicans fight it out to see who will challenge her for the mansion. In her most recent state filing, Whitmer reported taking in $2.5 million in the last quarter of 2021; she had $12.6 million in cash on hand in October.
Whitmer’s approval rating reached 57% in early January and polls show her leading potential GOP opponents—signs that for all the noise about Whitmer’s political weakness, the race is currently hers to lose.
But that doesn’t mean that Democrats and progressive donors should take her re-election as a given. Whitmer—already the subject of two recall efforts and a kidnapping plot—is one of the country’s most important Democrats as the country heads into 2024. Republicans are already loading up county canvassers across Michigan with Trump loyalists who are likely to challenge a Democratic win in the next presidential election no matter what it takes. Aghogho Edevbie, state director for All Voting is Local Michigan, told Politifact that he is “deeply concerned” about the ramifications of such moves.
“Even a little bit of opposition, if you had a deadlock in one county, would be tremendously destabilizing,” Edevbie said. Who controls the governorship in a contested election could make all the difference.