Gretchen Whitmer has strengths that Joe Biden lacks and will believe she can beat Donald Trump if she is a late stand-in as Democrat nominee for president, according to her former top aide.
The Michigan governor’s name has been swirling for months as one of the possible candidates who could replace Mr Biden were he to pull out of the race for the White House.
The rising star of the Democrats was again being put forward by frantic Democrats after Thursday night’s disastrous debate which saw Mr Biden, 81, repeatedly stumble over his words and lose his train of thought.
After the catastrophic night, Ms Whitmer, 52, who garnered national attention for her strict pandemic laws and for being the victim of a kidnap plot, doubled down on her support for Mr Biden, saying the difference between the Democrat leader and his opponent “could not be clearer”.
But Mark Burton, who was Ms Whitmer’s top aide for more than a decade, said he thinks Ms Whitmer believes she could beat Trump in the 2024 election.
“I think she has always looked at her ascension over time in politics as an inherent comparison against the other candidate,” Mr Burton told The Telegraph, pointing to when she took on Rick Snyder, Michigan’s former Republican governor.
“I think she would view this similarly in terms of, she probably thinks ‘I’m capable of... first off, beating Donald Trump’,” he said.
Brillo137 on June 30th, 2024 at 02:47 UTC »
She’s uniquely well positioned to win. She can secure the Midwest, has no foreign policy positions weighing her down because she’s a governor, she can attack abortion and women’s rights issues in a way no man ever could, and she can talk about extremism because a far right group attempted to kidnap her.
NotAnotherEmpire on June 30th, 2024 at 02:15 UTC »
Whitmer hates MAGA (see kidnapping plot...) and crushed them in 2022, winning her race by 11 points and getting a legislative trifecta.
pegasusCK on June 30th, 2024 at 00:59 UTC »
She's also wildly popular in Michigan which is one of the most crucial battleground states this time around. Not sure how she would do in other battleground states however.
If Biden is replaced you could do a lot worse than Whitmer.