Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer trekked across Lake Michigan on Monday to promote abortions in Wisconsin, at least her fourth jaunt out of state on behalf of President Biden in the last three months.
Whitmer and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers held events in Wisconsin’s two most liberal cities – Milwaukee and Madison – to fixate on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, and stoke fears of what a second Trump administration would mean for abortion access, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
“It’s really important to remind people that if Donald Trump gets a second term in the White House he has already committed to signing a national abortion ban,” Whitmer falsely said in Milwaukee. “Biden is the only person on the ballot who would win the White House and will protect these fundamental rights.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is in Wisconsin today campaigning for the Biden campaign. She’s holding events in Madison and outside of Milwaukee talking about abortion and “lowering costs for Wisconsinites” pic.twitter.com/osfaUNvIqT
— Matt Smith (@mattsmith_news) June 17, 2024
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In April, Trump declined to endorse a national abortion ban, laying out his position on the issue in a video post on Truth Social, according to The Associated Press.
“My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint, the states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both,” Trump said. “And whatever they decide must be the law of the land – in this case, the law of the state.”
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The former president made similar comments the month prior in Waukesha, Wisc., where he cautioned about veering from a states-first approach, Wisconsin Public Radio reports.
“We brought to back into the states where it has to be, and over a period of time that works out,” he said. “And it’s taken a lot of the controversy out and it’s been a good thing. And you also have to remember, as a politician, you also have to get elected.”
Evers, a former state superintendent who largely campaigned on abortion in his 2022 re-election, reminded folks in Madison what Trump managed to accomplish during his first term in the White House.
In Wisconsin, the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade triggered a state abortion ban from 1849 that was challenged in a lawsuit that’s currently on appeal in the state Supreme Court. In Michigan, the decision led to a ballot referendum that enshrined the right to an abortion into the state constitution.
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In both cases, as well as other states, the federal government was removed from the equation, allowing locals to decide how to handle the issue.
“Donald Trump caused this to happen in the state of Wisconsin,” Evers said, according to Spectrum News. “He ran on it in 2016, and he did it. He talked about getting a Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade, and he did it.”
The Monday events, scheduled ahead of Trump’s return to Wisconsin on Tuesday, mark at least the fourth time Whitmer has set aside her responsibilities in Michigan to campaign for Biden elsewhere.
In April, Whitmer offered a similar spiel in Arizona, where she also attempted to link Trump to a national abortion ban, telling tens of patrons at a Phoenix coffee house the issue is more important than the economy.
“Abortion is about the economy,” she said. “The most important economic decision a woman makes over the course of her lifetime is whether and when to bear a child.”
It was the same song and dance in North Carolina earlier this month, when Whitmer encouraged a small gathering of Democrats to rally around abortion as a blueprint for turning the state blue.
“We didn’t write off any part of the state because we didn’t write off a single voter, even in the reddest counties,” Whitmer said of Michigan Democrats’ efforts in 2022. “We still showed up.”
Whitmer echoed that message in Texas last week, when she told Democrats in the Lone Star State “if you keep fighting for progress, you will beat the fire.”
Folks in Michigan, meanwhile, are still dealing with the fallout from the 2022 election, with Whitmer’s second term accelerating the state’s decline across a variety of metrics experts use to gauge success in governance.
The governor’s own Growing Michigan Together Council has raised the alarm about how the state is now “lagging in median income, educational outcomes, and attainment and have fallen behind faster-growing peer states in key measures of infrastructure, community well-being, and job opportunities.”
Similar findings have come from places like U.S. News & World Report, which ranked Michigan 42nd in its most recent “Best States” analysis, down another spot from the year prior.
The report shows Michigan students have below average math scores, are less likely to graduate high school, and leave college with more debt compared to the national average. Whitmer’s Michigan also has a higher poverty rate, lower median household income, more industrial toxins, more drinking water violations, less renewable energy usage, worse roads, and higher rates of incarceration and violent crime than most states.
Another analysis of the best high schools from the same site ranked Michigan 31st nationally, dropping five spots from 2023 when it ranked 26th, tied with Kentucky.
All of the above and more is contributing to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 24/7 Wall Street, United Van Lines’ 47th Annual National Movers Study, and others detailing Michigan’s lagging population growth and predicted decline next decade.