Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), who has been widely viewed as a potential Democratic presidential candidate, said Thursday that she won’t be seeking her party’s nomination — at least, not in 2028.
Whitmer is term-limited next year after winning two gubernatorial elections in her key battleground state, and pundits had regularly identified her as part of Democrats’ crowded potential presidential field.
In an interview with Fox 2 Detroit, she said: “There will be a robust group of people running for president. … I will not be one of them in 2028. I can tell you that.”
Whitmer rose to the national spotlight during the coronavirus pandemic, when she pushed back on President Donald Trump’s efforts to antagonize her as “that woman from Michigan.”
She led a push to codify abortion rights in the state constitution in 2022, when Michigan Democrats won control of all three branches of state government and then used that “trifecta” to repeal a law that makes it harder for worker to unionize.
She drew some criticism for a 2025 speech in which she found some common ground with Trump but continued to stoke speculation that she could be preparing a run.
This year, she was one of several potential candidates who traveled to the Munich Security Conference, which does not typically attract U.S. governors, to lay out alternatives to Trump’s foreign policy.
In the Fox interview filmed on Mackinac Island, she mentioned seeking advice from other potential candidates, current and former. .
“I’ve gotten counsel from people who’ve made the transition, whether it was my friend Gina Raimondo, who I sat with last night for a little bit; Pete Buttigieg; or Paul Ryan, who I have chatted with a fair amount,” she said. “That’s the advice everyone says: Take a little bit of time, and so that’s what I’m going to do.”
Other Democratic governors, including Gavin Newsom in California, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear in Kentucky and JB Pritzker in Illinois, are considered leading candidates for the party’s 2028 primary.
Speculation also exists around Buttigieg, former vice president Kamala Harris, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York).
Similar comments from past likely presidential candidates have not necessarily prevented them from jumping into the race later on.
Barack Obama and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) both made similar statements before reversing course and then jumping into campaigns.
Whitmer has often used the phrase “Never say never” when asked if she might accept a Cabinet post in President Joe Biden’s administration, serve as Harris’s running mate in 2024 or launch a presidential bid.
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