Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Thursday she does not plan to run for president in 2028, rebuffing assumptions that she would join what’s expected to be a crowded Democratic primary race.
“There will be a robust group of people running for president,” Whitmer told WJBK-TV of Detroit in an interview Thursday, adding, “I will not be one of them in 2028, I can tell you that.”
But just hours later, Whitmer softened her stance.
Speaking on stage at a policy conference on Michigan’s Mackinac Island, Whitmer said she needed to “correct the record” and clarified her earlier remarks.
“I never thought I would run for governor,” Whitmer said. “So I guess I should know better to never say never.”
Whitmer’s remarks come as she nears the end of her second term, which will wrap up at the end of this year. Because of term limits, she cannot run for a third term as governor.
The governor and more than a dozen other high-profile Democrats have been widely discussed as potential 2028 contenders.
On Thursday, a person close to Whitmer, granted anonymity to share observations about her, suggested the earlier remarks were not an unequivocal closing of the 2028 door.
Whitmer, this person said, often focuses on what’s immediately in front of her and not political races years into the future. The governor, they added, is not a “never” kind of person.
A 2025 trip to Washington, though, stoked anger from other Democrats after she gave a speech identifying common ground with President Donald Trump and later appeared with him in the Oval Office. A now-infamous photo of the governor covering her face with folders in the Oval Office went viral after the meeting.
And almost a year ago, as Whitmer and Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., were fueling speculation that two women from the battleground state could run for president in 2028, two Democratic operatives close to the governor seemed skeptical that she would go through with a presidential campaign.
The potential 2028 field includes a handful of other Democrats, including governors, such as Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
Moore, like Whitmer, has also denied that he wants to run for president in two years.
The Maryland governor told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” last year, “I’m not running for president.”
But even broad declarations against presidential campaigns don’t preclude political observers from including politicians on lists of potential 2028 candidates.
In 2006, then-Sen. Barack Obama told “Meet the Press,” “I won’t run” for president; he went on to win the Democratic nomination and the presidency just two years later.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., also said in 2018 that “I have no intention” to run for president on “Meet the Press,” and she later launched a campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination.
Also in her remarks to WJBK on Thursday, Whitmer said that she was leaning on the advice of other former officials about how to transition from elected or appointed office to personal life.
“I’ve gotten counsel from people who’ve made the transition, whether it was my friend Gina Raimondo, who I sat with last night for a little bit, Pete Buttigieg or Paul Ryan, who I have chatted with a fair amount. That’s the advice everyone says, take a little bit of time, and so that’s what I’m gonna do,” the governor said. Ryan served as the GOP speaker of the House from October 2015 to January 2019.
Buttigieg, a former federal transportation secretary, and Raimondo, a former federal commerce secretary, are each also on lists of who could run for president in two years.
