Gretchen Whitmer, the telegenic, charismatic 52 year old governor of Michigan, is, based on recent polls, the Democrat most likely to beat Donald Trump in the 2024 general election.
A little noticed poll last month of 600 likely Michigan voters showed Trump beating Biden in the bellwether state by 7 points, but the popular governor beating Trump by 6 points.
Analysts agree that the path to the 2024 White House runs through the battleground “Rust Belt” swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
But an alarming survey by The New York Times and Siena College a few weeks ago found Trump leading in five of the six battleground states that gave Biden his 2020 victory: by 5 points in Arizona, 6 points in Georgia, 5 points in Michigan, 10 points in Nevada and 4 points in Pennsylvania.
As the New Yorker reported, “In 2020, Biden won nonwhite voters under the age of forty-five by 39 points, but according to the Times/Siena poll he now leads among that group by just 6 points, and is essentially tied with Trump among voters younger than twenty-nine.”
In 2020, Biden won Michigan by 3 points. In 2022, Whitmer won re-election there by 11 points. Her popularity that year also turned both houses of the Michigan state legislature blue for the first time in 40 years.
A politically moderate mother of two, Whitmer’s outspoken leadership and successful legislation on abortion rights would galvanize women, young and old, White, Black, Brown and Asian, across the nation. It could possibly even secure the first presidential win for Democrats in 12 years from Ohio, where an abortion rights bill this month passed by an astonishing 13 points.
So why isn’t Whitmer running? Because President Biden and the DNC that he controls does not want her, or anyone else, to run against him in the primary. They believe that a serious primary challenge, even a civil one between friends (Biden appointed Whitmer Vice Chair of the DNC), will weaken his chance of beating Trump.
As a result, one year before an election that will determine whether the most powerful fascist candidate in history becomes our president, tens of millions of Americans are feeling as though we are watching the slow motion train wreck of our democracy.
The most important political question for Democrats like myself losing sleep over a Trump dictatorship is not whether Biden is too old to handle four more years as president, or whether he deserves four more years based upon his impressive record, but whether the perception that he is too old, by 71% of swing state voters, makes him too old to win the 2024 election.
The stakes are too high for Democrats to proceed without a Plan B for the Democratic nominee. But it’s not too late. Whitmer has until December 10 to get on the ballots in states representing two-thirds of all electoral votes.
Primaries exist for a reason. They are a dress rehearsal for the main event, and they allow voters to hear and see the capabilities and positions of their party candidates prior to the general election. Although it is true that presidential incumbents rarely face serious primary challenges from leaders within their own party, these are not ordinary times-and Biden is already the oldest president in American history.
Almost every Democratic Party leader and pundit argues that polls are useless this far from an election, that voters are “wrong” to worry about Biden’s age because he is in better shape and stronger mentally than Trump and that he has done a good job during the past three years.
Besides, as a dedicated Democratic elder in my community told me last weekend, “Trump is never going to win this election!”
There is truth in all these arguments-except the last one. But denial, like wishful thinking and arguing about how voters should feel about Biden, are not effective election strategies. With a continually underestimated demagogue like Trump, this response could, in fact, end up being election suicide for Democrats, and for our democracy.
Democrats need an insurance policy, a Plan B, especially in the event Biden becomes incapacitated during the next 12 months. Kamala Harris, whose low favorability polling of 39% are two points lower than Biden’s (and worse than any vice president ever), is relatively unpopular, even among Black voters. A recent L.A. Times poll found 66% of Black California voters approved of Harris and 26% disapproved, while Whitmer won 94% of Michigan’s Black votes in her 2022 re-election.
I can see no harm-and potentially enormous benefits-to giving Biden an opportunity to prove that he has what it takes to inspire voters and beat Trump, by having him run and win a primary contest against the strongest alternative presidential candidate Democrats can offer.
If Biden wins the primary, great. It will be a dress rehearsal and he will activate and mobilize supporters as Americans watch him debate, while also allowing the public to hear from the next generation of Democratic leaders. He will be in better shape for the big battle next November.
Or, if Biden loses the primary to Whitmer, then Democrats will have dodged a bullet, and have a stronger candidate to beat Trump.
As the New Yorker’s Talk of the Town warned last week,“The danger encoded in the polls is that enough voters might come to see Biden as embodying a stagnant status quo and Trump as the alternative to it, which feels a little too close for comfort to 2016.”
