Whitmer campaigns nationally for Harris

After a major shakeup in the 2024 election, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer went on the campaign trail to campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris, the new presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

With about 100 days to go before the Nov. 5 election, Harris has a chance to re-introduce herself as a presidential candidate to the country after ending her 2020 campaign before that year’s Iowa caucuses. Whitmer addressed voters at a New Hampshire brewery on Thursday. And she will visit Pennsylvania on Monday, according to multiple reports.

Whitmer threw her support behind Harris after President Joe Biden backed his vice president to replace him as the top candidate to take on former President Donald Trump.

“She’s a former prosecutor, a reproductive freedom advocate, and I know that she supports Michigan,” Whitmer said in a statement about Harris earlier this week. Whitmer is a co-chair of Harris’ campaign.

While Harris has garnered enough support from Democratic delegates to secure her party’s nomination, she has not yet decided who she will choose as her running mate. Whitmer has pushed back on speculation that she is a leading candidate for the role, saying she has no plans to leave the state and intends to finish out her current term, which ends in 2027.

But Whitmer has said that voters in the U.S. could embrace a two-woman ticket even if she isn’t on it during a podcast interview. She echoed the sentiment in New Hampshire, telling voters there that Harris “needs to be bold” in choosing her vice president and saying a two-woman ticket or a ticket with two people of color would be “exciting,” according to Seacostonline.

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Whitmer is traveling the country to promote Harris’ last-minute presidential campaign at a time when her own national star has risen. Whitmer’s book — “True Gretch” — has given the Michigan governor a chance to introduce herself to a national audience. It landed earlier this week in the top three best-selling books on The New York Times list for combined print and e-book nonfiction.

Back in her home state, Whitmer has repeatedly described the presidential election as a neck-and-neck race to win Michigan’s popular vote.

Biden defeated Trump in 2020 by more than 154,000 votes, or nearly three percentage points, in Michigan. Four years earlier, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in Michigan by about 11,000 votes, or just under a quarter of a percentage point. It was the narrowest margin of victory for Trump of any state that year, and the first time Michigan had supported a Republican presidential nominee since 1988.

Contact Clara Hendrickson at [email protected] or 313-296-5743. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @clarajanehen.

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