(Source: MIRS.news, Published 11/15/2024) While other Democratic governors are putting the wagons in a circle to inoculate programs that might be bashed by the incoming president, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is charting her own course on how to deal with the new Donald Trump White House. 

One capitol observer described her response to the changeover in power as "tepid and non-confrontational," and that seems to square with what the Governor told reporters this week. 

Asked if she was going to sign onto the "Governor's Safeguarding Democracy" project launched by the Illinois and Colorado governors, the Governor demurred. 

"I'm not a part of the group. They're great leaders. They're great friends. There's probably some things that they'll learn that others can learn from," she said of the efforts of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.  But she also reflects that she might learn stuff, too. 

And "certainly there are things we're learning that we'll share with them," she went on. 

Last week, Whitmer's initial responses to Trump's 1.39-percentage-point victory in Michigan and Electoral College victory brought wishes of "good luck" to the President in waiting. She asserts that she worked with the first Trump administration and intends to find ways to replicate that effort. 

The Governor's chosen path is consistent with her mantra that, "every governor's got to manage their state under their own circumstances and so that's why I'll continue to keep my focus on the people of the State of Michigan."