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Score one for the governor whose wild ride of a first term has attracted roughly a dozen GOP opponents as she comes up for re-election. Matthew A. Winkler, writing in Bloomberg Opinion, credits Gretchen Whitmer's administration with Michigan having an economy "that improved the most in its history since the pandemic began two years ago."
Governor Whitmer in a greener season (File photo)
The Wolverine State's second woman governor (Jennifer Granholm served from 2003 to 2011) outperformed the U.S. when Trump was in the White House and continues to do so 15 months after voters rejected his bid for a second term. Trump promised during his 2016 campaign to rebuild Michigan manufacturing, which deteriorated during his presidency and underscores his failure to win the state again in his re-election bid.
...The turning point came when Trump moved to Florida. Among 37 states with a population greater than 2 million, Michigan is No. 1 based on equally weighted measures of employment, personal income, home prices, mortgage delinquency, state tax revenue and the stock market performance of its publicly-traded companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Well, that's interesting, as if you asked most of those seeking to take over the governor's office, they'd tell you Michigan is a hellhole of misery and masks. But the data tells a different story, Winkler says:
Michigan, whose 10,077,331 population is 2% greater than 9,883,640 in the 2010 census, was perennially near the bottom of the U.S. during the past two decades. Whitmer's first year in the governor's mansion marked the beginning of the biggest manufacturing boom since the recovery from the 2008 recession. Non-farm payrolls since April 2020 surged 25%, almost double the 14.3% U.S. average and leading every state in the nation. Michigan unemployment is 5.6%, down from a pandemic high of 23.6%.
Huh. Not only that:
“The woman from Michigan”' can take credit for the rebound.
Let the histrionics begin.
