# Gretchen Whitmer Democratic Governor of Michigan since January 2019 (b. 1971), re-elected by eleven points in 2022, term-limited, and leaving office in January 2027 — the governor of the country's most consequential presidential battleground for the whole of the Trump era, and the Democrat whose posture toward the second term has been the party's most argued-over. A former prosecutor and state senate minority leader, she won in 2018 on "fix the damn roads," and became a national figure in 2020 twice: for the stringent pandemic orders that made her the President's target ("LIBERATE MICHIGAN"), and as the object of a kidnapping plot by the Wolverine Watchmen militia, foiled by the FBI in October 2020, in which nine men were eventually convicted. She was on the 2020 vice-presidential shortlist and led the state Democrats to their first full control of Lansing in forty years in 2022, which produced a burst of legislation — repeal of the 1931 abortion ban, repeal of right-to-work, gun laws — that is the model the party points to for what unified state government can do. ## The second term Her lane since January 2025 has been selective cooperation: she went to the Oval Office to secure Selfridge Air National Guard Base's future and was photographed shielding her face with a folder as the President signed unrelated orders; she appeared with him at the Detroit Auto Show; she has criticized the tariffs while declining the full-resistance posture of Pritzker or Newsom, on the argument that Michigan's auto and manufacturing economy cannot afford a governor at war with Washington. The intra-party criticism has been sustained. On **May 28, 2026**, at the Mackinac conference, she took herself out of the 2028 race — "I will not be one of them" — while saying she had "a lot of gas in the tank" for something. Her successor will be decided on November 3: Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) against Rep. John James (R), with Benson ahead by about seven in late-August polling ([[2026 Midterms Hub]]). The [[US Governors Hub]] places her among the term-limited Democrats whose records the 2028 field will be measured against. ## See Also - [[Donald Trump]] · [[2026 Midterms Hub]] · [[US Governors Hub]] · [[Josh Shapiro]]