Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has rejected the idea of her replacing President Biden on the party’s 2024 ticket, calling coverage of the possibility “a distraction.”
“It’s a distraction more than anything,” Whitmer told the Associated Press Monday of the growing speculation that she could end up stepping in for Biden if the 81-year-old bows out.
“I don’t like seeing my name in articles like that because I’m totally focused on governing and campaigning for the ticket,” she added.
Reps for the governor’s office and campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Biden would have to voluntarily step down in order to be replaced, allowing the Democratic National Committee to nominate a successor to himself and Vice President Kamala Harris, who would no longer be a shoo-in as running-mate.
Whitmer, 52, is releasing her new memoir “True Gretch” on Tuesday, which covers her rise through the ranks to become Michigan’s governor in 2019 and win re-election in 2022 — leading the first Democratic trifecta in the state in nearly four decades.
“I’ve spent the first quarter of this century watching as the arc of our politics has bent uncomfortably toward incivility and strife,” she is quoted by the AP as writing in its opening pages.
“That’s why I decided to write this book: to put a little light out there in a damn dark time.”
Following Biden’s disastrous debate performance against former President Donald Trump on June 27, Whitmer phoned the Biden campaign with an “unambiguous SOS” that Michigan was no longer winnable, Politico reported.
She publicly denied the report, but in doing so asked supporters to donate to a super PAC affiliated with her — not the president.
“I think everyone has acknowledged it was not his finest 90 minutes,” Whitmer told the AP of Biden’s performance.
“That said, this is a man I’ve known for a long time and has decades of public service receipts that he’s delivered to people.”
Whitmer was one of several Democratic governors who visited the White House July 3 for an all-hands-on-deck meeting with the president — and the first to later stand by him.
“@JoeBiden is our nominee. He is in it to win it and I support him,” she posted on X shortly after the meeting ended.
Plenty more questions about Biden’s mental acuity, however, surfaced during that sit-down.
The oldest-ever president griped to the Democratic governors that he hadn’t been getting enough sleep and should avoid holding events after 8 p.m. — while hitting a little too close to the mark with an apparent joke that while his health was fine the problems were “just my brain,” the New York Times reported.
The debate also prompted Biden to get another brief health check-up for an apparently lingering cold, but not undergo a full physical, the White House later confirmed.
Whitmer’s tell-all about her ascent to the governor’s mansion includes just one apology about choosing to eat out with friends in May 2021 as residents in her state continued to endure COVID-19 lockdown restrictions that she imposed.
Still, she knocks California Gov. Gavin Newsom — another potential 2024 contender and likely 2028 rival for the Democratic nomination — as having done the same when he dined maskless at the posh French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley.
