When Simon & Schuster announced in early April that Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer’s memoir would be released on July 9, no one could have known that the question driving the political conversation when the book hit shelves would be whether President Joe Biden could be replaced on the Democratic ticket — and that Whitmer would be high on many people’s lists to replace him.
True Gretch: What I’ve Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between will be published next Tuesday amid calls for Biden to drop out of the presidential race following his disastrous debate performance. During the 90-minute fiasco, Trump confidently told lie after lie while Biden struggled to convincingly articulate his stances. Since then, the New York Times editorial board, The New Yorker’s editor, The Economist, and several other newspapers across the country have urged the president to step down from the Democratic ticket. Biden himself acknowledged on Friday that the debate didn’t go well, but he made it clear that he has no intention of dropping out of the race.
While Biden’s less-than-stellar performance has since led to some chatter in Democratic circles to “draft Gretch,” Whitmer has been vocal about her plans to stick with Biden. “Not only do I believe Joe can win Michigan, I know he can because he’s got the receipts,” she told Politico on Monday, after the outlet reported that Whitmer told the Biden campaign that the president lost Michigan because of his debate performance.
Whitmer was adamant that she is behind Biden “100 percent in the fight to defeat Donald Trump,” but she notably hasn’t ruled out a 2028 run. Meanwhile, those who’ve had access to early versions of True Gretch say the book, which details Whitmer’s political career to date, reads an awful lot like the memoir of a future presidential candidate.
