In race to succeed Gretchen Whitmer, Gilchrist says he can unite Democrats

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16-03-2025

Last week, Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II entered the weirdest Michigan gubernatorial race I can remember ― admittedly, I've only lived here since 2000, so I missed the year celebrity attorney Geoffrey Fieger ran against Gov. John Engler, which must've been a real trip.
Why is 2026 so weird? Mostly because Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, an uber-Democrat until *checks watch* last Thanksgiving, is running as an independent, a strategy that I struggle to see working out for Duggan or the Dems.
But also because former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox ― a Republican who has been out of public life since the last time he ran for governor back in 2010, when he got pasted by then-candidate Rick Snyder and then-U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, is "exploring" a run, using $1 million of his own money. And finally, because an EPIC-MRA poll last month testing the popularity of various Michigan figures who might run for various things next year included former Amway executive/Betsy DeVos husband Dick DeVos ― a Republican who ran for governor in 2006 and got pasted by then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm. I hoped we were done with also-rans, oligarchs and oligarch also-rans. (And yes, we're talking about the 2026 governor's race in March of 2025, because that's just how it goes.)
Democrats, by and large, did not fare well in Michigan in the 2024 election. President Donald Trump won the state by about 80,000 votes. Democrats also lost the state House and the competitive 7th District U.S. House race, but it's a little premature to declare Michigan a red state. Democrats hold the top three statewide offices and the state Senate ― and in a year that favored Republicans, Democrat Elissa Slotkin beat Republican Mike Rogers by about 20,000 votes to win the state's open U.S. Senate seat.
Gilchrist is the third Democrat to join the race, preceded by Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson. Benson has won statewide, twice, and has drawn national attention for her advocacy for voting access and fair elections. Two Republicans have officially announced: state Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, R-Porter Township, and Grand Blanc resident and trucking company owner Anthony Hudson, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2024 and whose campaign materials suggested he favored disbanding the U.S. military.
American politics are cyclical, and there's no reason to think that Democrats running in 2026 won't fare just as well as Democrats who ran in 2022, or 2018, particularly if they're buoyed by growing opposition to Trump's breakneck efforts to dismantle the American government.
But that's another reason next year's election is going to be weird: Democratic candidates must court a conflicted electorate, including centrists who value bipartisan cooperation and hope elected leaders will work across the aisle to mitigate the harm Trump is causing, and a loud left wing demanding full-scale opposition to Trump.
In 2024, as candidates either lost or failed to engage key parts of key constituencies, the Democratic coalition wobbled, Gilchrist told me this week.
And that's part of his argument: "I can hold the coalition together," Gilchrist said.
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For a candidate to declare that he or she is the only one who can win is standard campaign rhetoric. But in Gilchrist's case, it's worth considering.
A former software engineer who left Michigan for a job at Microsoft, Gilchrist came back to work for Barack Obama's presidential campaign and the progressive group MoveOn.org. But as lieutenant governor, he's worked alongside the more-centrist Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
At 42, he's the youngest candidate in the race, but he's championed serious policy initiatives, chairing the Joint Task Force on Jail and Pretrial Incarceration with former Michigan Supreme Court Justice Bridget McCormack, advocating for the addition of $50 million to the Michigan Housing and Community Development Fund and championing clean slate legislation that offers Michiganders convicted of certain crimes automatic expungement.
He's a native Detroiter with three school-aged children; his wife, Ellen, is accomplished in her own right, as a former public schools administrator and a nonprofit executive.
Still, said Andrea Bitely, founder and principal of Lansing-based Bitely Communications and a Free Press contributing columnist, "It is incredibly hard for a lieutenant governor to separate themselves from the governor they have served with. There's no mechanism for them to set their own path unless they go against the governor, which they are not inclined to do."
A little, perhaps, like a vice president running to succeed her boss. Or, here in Michigan, former Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, whose 2018 bid to follow Gov. Rick Snyder foundered in the GOP primary. But unlike Kamala Harris, whose campaign was inextricably linked to a deeply unpopular president ― or Calley, whose governor presided over the Flint water crisis ― Michigan voters like Gilchrist's boss. By November 2024, just 37% of respondents to a Gallup poll approved of Joe Biden. In last month's EPIC-MRA poll, Whitmer's favorability rating was 52% ― ahead of Donald Trump at 46% ― a position she's maintained for six years, winning re-election in 2022 by a comfortable margin.
That presents a second challenge, Bitely said: "If he wants to be his own man, he has to separate himself from Whitmer, and that could potentially mean picking a less popular position."
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Gilchrist doesn't see it that way. Instead, he said, he has an opportunity to build on what Whitmer has accomplished.
"I'm really proud of what we've done," Gilchrist told me. "But the world has changed since 2018. We're in a different place, and we need a different set of skills to meet the moment."
Gilchrist said he wants Michigan to be a state our kids won't want to leave. In the state he envisions, "You can be the professional you want to be, the person you want to be, in Michigan. And if that's true, then that means we've gotten a lot of other things right, too" ― like infrastructure, schools and a diversified economy.
Whitmer has drawn fire from some progressive voters after last month's State of the State speech, in which Whitmer, who went head-to-head with Trump during the COVID-19 pandemic, said she was willing to work with the president.
"If Gov. Whitmer, as the sitting governor, is doing what she believes she needs to do to protect the interests of the people of Michigan, I understand," Gilchrist said. "For me, this moment requires making sure that we understand, and, frankly, name the very specific harms that are either already here or on the horizon for the people of Michigan, with what I think have been reckless and irresponsible actions taken by this administration."
Like cuts to the federal workforce ― about 60,000 Michiganders work for the federal government, including, until 2016, his father, who worked for the Department of Defense ― the Department of Education or threats to Medicaid or Social Security.
"You do not achieve efficiency through destruction," he said.
Gilchrist likes to say that his height ― he's 6-foot-8 ― is the second thing people notice about him. The first, of course, is that he's Black. He's Michigan's first Black lieutenant governor, and if he's elected, would become only the fourth Black man elected governor of a U.S. state.
Think about that for a minute.
But in his travels across Michigan's 83 counties, Gilchrist said, his race is not what has mattered most to Michiganders.
"I've been Black my whole life. I'm going to be Black my whole life. That's true. What is also true is that people have respected that I've put in the work to actually come and meet them where they are, and say, 'This person is different from me, but this person is willing to understand, willing to engage.' And that's been my experience in real time," Gilchrist said.
"People say, 'OK, you might be from downstate, but it does seem like you actually care. You can tell me who the largest employer is in Baraga County. And you were at the Keewanaw Bay Ojibwa Community College three weeks ago, meeting with us,' which is, down the street from Pettibone, which is their largest employer. ... I think if you meet people where they are ... you can build the trust that enables the person to open up and say, 'This is what's important to me, and this is what I need help with to be my best,' and then trust me to be the person to go home and do it."
Of course, as Bitely reminded me, a lot can happen, when there are still 18 months before the 2026 election ― "In 2010," she said, "Rick Snyder essentially came out of nowhere."
Let's hope, at least, it doesn't get that weird.
Nancy Kaffer is the editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press. Contact: [e-mail]. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters and we may publish it online and in print.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: In race to succeed Whitmer, Gilchrist says he can unite Dems | Opinion