Could Gretchen Whitmer be the first female president of the US? The governor of Michigan just released her memoir True Gretch, ‘swears like a sailor’ – and the FBI foiled a plot to kidnap and kill her

Jul 14 , 2024

Governor of Michigan Gretchen Whitmer is being discussed as one of the possible candidates to replace Joe Biden, should he decide to step down. Photo: @gewhitmer/Instagram

As the hand-wringing among America’s Democrats continues following President Joe Biden’s weak debate performance at the end of June, several potential candidates are being touted to replace him.

One of those is Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. And while she’s batted away the idea that she would run – “It’s a distraction … I’m totally focused on governing and campaigning for the [Biden-Kamala Harris] ticket,” she told AP – her pleas are falling on deaf ears.

US President Joe Biden speaking to Detroit auto workers beside Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in February. Photo: Reuters

According to Politico, “the Democratic donor class has swooned for Whitmer” ever since the debate. What’s more, the 52-year-old has just released a memoir, True Gretch. The Washington Post’s summary of the book? A “welcome reassurance that someone might be courageous and capable enough to run toward the fire that’s making kindling of our democracy”.

It seems that if things start to get worse for Biden, Whitmer may well find her star in the ascendant – here’s what you need to know about her.

What is Gretchen Whitmer’s background?

Gretchen Whitmer is the eldest of three in her family. Photo: @gewhitmer/Instagram

Whitmer is the eldest of three children born to Sherry and Richard Whitmer in Michigan. Her late mother was assistant attorney general in the state and a Democrat, while her father was a director of the Michigan department of commerce and is a Republican.

Gretchen Whitmer’s parents were both public servants before their retirement. Photo: @gewhitmer/Instagram

In a Vanity Fair profile, Whitman remembered her mother as someone who was “fierce”, “unapologetic about owning her own space” and who always wore “hot pink blazers to court”. Photos of the governor wearing the colour herself on several important occasions suggest that the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.

Gretchen Whitmer is the current governor of Michigan

Gretchen Whitmer was elected governor of Michigan in 2018. Photo: @gewhitmer/Instagram

Whitman described herself as a “lifelong Michigander” on X (formerly Twitter) and, while she originally wanted to be an ESPN anchor, according to the New Yorker, she was elected to the Michigan House of Representatives in 2000 when she was just 29. She ran for governor in 2018 and, according to her congressional bio, won all 83 counties in the primary and won the general election with 53 per cent of the vote.

She’s known as a straight shooter

Gretchen Whitmer has no qualms about swearing and telling it like it is. Photo: @gewhitmer/Instagram

When Politico quoted an anonymous source saying Whitmer had warned that Biden’s debate performance would make it harder for Democrats to win Michigan in the 2024 election, her response on X was typically feisty: “Anyone who claims I would say that we can’t win Michigan is full of s***,” she wrote. “Let’s go.”

Gretchen Whitmer flipped the script on Donald Trump after he repeatedly referred to her as “that woman from Michigan”. Photo: @gewhitmer/Instagram

Whitmer also “has a wicked sense of humour” and “privately swears like a sailor”, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told NBC News in April.

Former president Donald Trump criticised Gretchen Whitmer’s pandemic stay-at-home policy. Photo: AP

When former president Donald Trump slammed her implementation of a statewide shutdown during the pandemic, per People, he condescendingly referred to her as “that woman from Michigan”. But Whitmer gleefully encouraged the glut of merchandise that followed, even wearing a T-shirt bearing the phrase on The Daily Show. “I took his insult, flipped it, and made it my own,” she wrote in her new memoir. “It was not only good for me, you could argue that it’s been good for Michigan’s Etsy community,” she went on to joke.

People have tried to kill her

Armed demonstrators protest in Lansing, Michigan against Gretchen Whitmer’s pandemic stay-at-home orders in May 2020; two years later, several were arrested after plotting to kidnap her. Photo: AFP

In October 2020, the FBI revealed that it had arrested 13 men on suspicion of orchestrating a plot to kidnap and kill Whitmer. Nine of the men were subsequently charged or pleaded guilty to the crime, per the BBC. Remarkably, in her new book, the governor tells of her desire to meet the men “face-to-face” in a bid to understand why they did it “and really hear the answers”.

She was also one of the senators at the capitol building on the day of the insurrection.

She’s passionate about standing up for women

Gretchen Whitmer has repeatedly campaigned for the right to get abortions. Photo: @gewhitmer/Instagram

These days, Whitmer has two daughters of her own and regularly sticks up for women and girls. In 2022, Whitmer tied her candidacy to a state constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to abortion, according to The New Yorker, and in 2013 she shocked the country when she told the Senate she’d been raped when she was younger.

“Thank God it didn’t result in a pregnancy,” she said in the unplanned remarks, “because I can’t imagine going through what I went through and then having to consider what to do about an unwanted pregnancy from an attacker.”

Icons and Influencers

Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer has risen above kidnap plots, insurrections, and taunts from Donald Trump – now there’s talk about her possibly becoming the Democratic presidential candidate
The 52-year old mother of 2 just released a well-timed memoir as her name continues to be bandied about to replace Joe Biden, but says the rumours are just a ‘distraction’ from doing her job