Reaction if a Whitmer 2028 candidacy ends up flopping

[jojoju1998]

Expected.  Winning a Democratic primary is about putting different ideological/ethnic coalitions together, and the primary calendar/delegate allocation rules make winning Black Southerners vastly overpowered.  Whitmer is a candidate for Chicago wine moms, but when did they ever decide a Democrat primary?

Raphael Warnock or Wes Moore, 2028!   

Black southerns support the "establishment". If Harris doesn't run in 2024, I could see black voters 40+ supporting Whitmer. But that depends on Warnock not running

What makes Whitmer part of the "establishment"?  She's the progressive governor of a Midwestern state; if anything, she is more Sanders/Warren than Biden/Harris.

Black Southerners are mostly low-information voters who strongly weigh visible idpol factors.  Biden didn't win South Carolina because he's "the establishment", he won because of nearly 100% name recognition and the warm, fuzzy vibes that came with being Obama's VP.  Polls showed that, in a sans-Biden race, most Black voters would have supported Sanders.

I'm sorry, but this is just a brain dead take. Whitmer is popular among African American voters in Michigan. Her problem with black southerners is not that she would not appeal to them, it's the fact that she's not nationally well known.

Governors as a whole more recently, have not garnered national attention, compared to Former Vice Presidents, and Senators.

[jojoju1998]

It's possible for sure, and would continue the pattern of early hyped candidates that ended up flopping. Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Kamala Harris and Rob!

Yeah, tbh this name stands out because I see many obvious parallels between Walker and Whitmer, his Democratic counterpart.

Both would be two-term governors of crucial Upper Midwest swing states, who embodied and pushed through their party's agenda through the state, who were incredibly controversial with the other side (Walker had a recall attempt in 2012; Whitmer was nearly kidnapped) but managed to nonetheless win reelection by larger-than-expected margins (especially important considering how closely divided MI and WI both are).

Whitmer is far more charismatic than Walker is.

[jojoju1998]

Expected.  Winning a Democratic primary is about putting different ideological/ethnic coalitions together, and the primary calendar/delegate allocation rules make winning Black Southerners vastly overpowered.  Whitmer is a candidate for Chicago wine moms, but when did they ever decide a Democrat primary?

Raphael Warnock or Wes Moore, 2028!   

How do you know that she's not popular with African Americans, or that she wouldn't do well with Black Southerners ?

She suffers from lack of visibility as a state governor sure but it doesn't mean that she isn't popular with the congressional black caucus type. You're comparing the dynamics of national politics, with state politics. Governors are typically supported full force by state/local elements, some of which are African American organizations, caucuses.



The problem is as a whole, Governors are FAR less known as I have said, than senators. Governors have FAR less visibility. So it's hard to break out. 1992 was an exception but that was because many of the top contenders in the democratic field chose not to run in the primaries. That made space for someone like Bill Clinton to become President.


The only Governor that has a higher national profile is Gavin Newsom... which makes me cringe.


Look, in the democratic primaries since... 2000 really, most of the nominees, and even candidates have either been Vice President or a Senator. People who are nationally known in Federal politics. Governors don't get a lot of attention.

[jojoju1998]

Not a surprise at all. She seems to be one of those candidates that gets talked about among the politico class but hasn't really demonstrated the ability to attract an enthusiastic national following. Some common examples of this are Mark Warner circa 2006, Marco Rubio 2015, and Ron DeSantis 2022. But on top of them, she also has to deal with sexism in politics, which is not to be underestimated on the Left any less than the Right.

Governors have less exposure, and so they don't have the opportunity to build a national profile.


Gavin Newsom as I said, is the only major Governor with high profile.


The last governor the democrats nominated was in 1992... Bill Clinton, and that was because all the top name democrats refused to run.

[jojoju1998]

"Gretchen Whitmer illustrated that model in Michigan this year. With her midterm victory, she has now had two decisive general-election wins in a critical Blue Wall state. Last month, she won by 10.6 points (a margin bested by only two Democratic presidential candidates in the last 50 years, Barack Obama in 2008 and Bill Clinton in 1996).

She ran on economics and abortion, increased Democratic turnout and persuaded swing voters, all while connecting with the party’s largest base: Black voters. She embodied the way smart campaigns in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and around the country operated this cycle, and she gave a blueprint for Democrats in 2024.

The first lesson of Ms. Whitmer’s campaign is that economic good news and development — especially building things — really make a difference. Democrats should run on American manufacturing: Whether it was a new semiconductor plant (to help ease the chip shortage facing the auto industry) or generational-level investments from G.M. in electric-vehicle battery plants (to make sure the critical supply chains for electric cars will be based in Michigan, not China, where many E.V. batteries are currently built), Ms. Whitmer fought to bring them to Michigan.

In in multiple TV ads, she told voters, “I can’t solve the inflation problem, but we’re doing things — right now — to help.” She listed tangible benefits that she proposed or got done, like more affordable community college, insurance refunds and tax cuts for seniors. She passed four balanced, bipartisan budgets with no tax increases, and she let voters know about that.

A lot of Democrats talked about economics across the country, but few did so as consistently and effectively as Ms. Whitmer. And it wasn’t just talk: When businesses opened, she was often there to celebrate them.
This was paired with a pocketbook attack. Her opponent, Tudor Dixon, took millions of dollars from the wildly unpopular (in Michigan) billionaire Betsy DeVos and her family. For months her campaign highlighted Ms. Dixon’s connections to Ms. DeVos and how Ms. Dixon’s tax plan would benefit Ms. DeVos and hurt the middle class — working-class tax hikes, cuts to schools and the like. Ms. Whitmer also highlighted abortion rights as a vote-deciding issue for swing voters. Again, this was not just talk. Through a ballot initiative, Michigan voters faced the decision on whether to place abortion protections in the state Constitution. Voters approved changing the state Constitution with strong support (57 percent).

Months before the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade and could have effectively banned abortion in Michigan (because of a dormant law from the 1930s), Ms. Whitmer sued and got courts to block enforcement of that law. No doubt the issue helped Michigan Democrats and progressives to catalyze turnout. Estimates from the U.S. Elections Project show overall turnout in 2022 was down about 6 percent from the 2018 midterm, but in Michigan, turnout was up nearly 5 percent.

Ms. Whitmer also developed a deep connection with Black voters well before she picked as her running mate and governing partner the state’s first Black lieutenant governor, Garlin Gilchrist. After winning Black voters decisively with high turnout in 2018, she deepened that connection. The “Big Gretch” song (“We ain’t even about to stress/we got Big Gretch”) and memes that came out of Black Michigan spoke to a deep appreciation Black voters had for her decisiveness in the pandemic to keep people safe.

This was on top of a lot of other work to help Black voters, things like bringing the first new auto plant to Detroit in 30 years and making sure Detroiters had a first crack at the plant’s jobs.

This did not come at the expense of talking to white voters: She won Macomb County, ground zero for voters who cast ballots for Barack Obama, then switched to Donald Trump, by about 60 percent more in 2022 from 2018."

https://web.archive.org/web/20230202065428/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/12/opinion/gretchen-whitmer-michigan-democrats.html