Well before President Joe Biden's nightmarish debate performance in June, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was being floated as a possible election-year replacement right next to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, along with a few other blue state governors like Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
While Newsom - despite his denials - has made it far more obvious that his goal has been to position himself as the backup plan in case Biden bowed out of the race, Whitmer has, like a typical poisonous snake waiting for the right time to strike, been lurking in the background, putting out feelers behind the scenes.
She even reportedly sent "advance teams" to Capitol Hill ahead of the debate to meet with Democrat strategists.
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Even more recently than that, Whitmer - a co-chair for Biden's reelection campaign - has had to try and put out fires in the aftermath of a report that suggested she told another senior campaign official after the debate that Michigan was likely no longer in play for Biden.
"Not only do I believe Joe can win Michigan, I know he can because he’s got the receipts," she declared, without evidence. In a later statement, she dismissed talk that she was interested in the 2024 Democratic nomination, calling it a "distraction."
"I don’t like seeing my name in articles like that because I’m totally focused on governing and campaigning for the ticket," she also said.
But for what "ticket" exactly is the big question and one that has gotten a little louder in the aftermath of a CNN interview she did Wednesday in which Whitmer indicated it might be a good idea after all for Joe Biden to submit to a cognitive test:
[CNN's ABBY] PHILLIP: What more should he do to shut this conversation down? Should he, as some people have suggested, just go ahead and take a cognitive test and demand that Donald Trump do the same?
WHITMER: I don't think that it hurt, to be honest. But at the end of the day --
PHILLIP: So, you think that he should take a cognitive test?
WHITMER: I don't think it would hurt.
Watch:
Even Biden campaign co-chair Gretchen Whitmer says it wouldn't "hurt" for Biden to take a cognitive exam pic.twitter.com/cqjh2HFIyc
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 11, 2024
Again, with the deliberate vagueness we've come to expect from Whitmer. Of course, it "wouldn't hurt" her as the replacement speculation intensifies ahead of next month's Democratic National Convention, but it undoubtedly would hurt Biden.
Tudor Dixon, who was Whitmer's Republican opponent in 2022, put things in perspective during a Fox Business interview, referencing Whitmer's conveniently timed book launch among other things as evidence that Whitmer knows exactly what she's doing:
Gretchen Whitmer chose to rush release a book and go on a media tour right at the time she knew Joe Biden's cognitive abilities would be exposed. pic.twitter.com/lYKBmTm3Np
— Tudor Dixon (@TudorDixon) July 9, 2024
Keep sharpening that knife, Gretch. We see you.
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