As Democrats look to learn lessons from the 2024 elections ahead of next year’s midterms, there may be no state more poised to serve as ground zero than Michigan.

President Donald Trump flipped the state in November, and now Democrats are looking to defend both the governor’s office and a U.S. Senate seat against an eager Republican Party. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is not seeking reelection because of term limits, and Sen. Gary Peters announced in January that he will not run again, either.

So far, no other presidential battleground state features both an open Senate seat and an open governor’s office on the ballot next year.

The race to succeed Whitmer already boasts a number of prominent candidates — and it’s set to get another one Tuesday when Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II (D) formally launches his campaign. He’s doing so at a time when Democrats are looking to their leaders to do more to counter Trump after a chaotic first two months in the White House — a dynamic that Gilchrist addressed in an interview with The Washington Post ahead of his launch.“My job as governor will be to protect, to promote, to advance the interests of the state of Michigan, and this administration has made it clear that they will bring calamity, chaos, confusion,” Gilchrist said. “And so my job is going to be to push back forcefully when that happens, and I won’t have any hesitation to step up in doing so.”

Gilchrist’s rivals already include Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D), whose campaign touted her Monday as the “front-runner” based on early fundraising and polling. There’s also Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson (D) and Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, a longtime Democrat who is running as an independent in an appeal to voters fed up with both parties.

Retooling after 2024

Duggan’s independent run probably won’t be the only effort by candidates to retool after 2024. The 2026 candidates are facing a unique set of issues at the state level, including the disproportionate impact of Trump’s tariffs on automakers in Detroit and attitudes among Arab Americans in Dearborn toward the war in Gaza.

Marshall Cohen, who was the political director at the Democratic Governors Association during Whitmer’s races, told The Post he saw parallels between her initial election and now.

“If you look back to 2018, the last time it was an open governor’s race, Trump had just won the state, there was a lot of political wisdom that Democrats were in the wilderness and weren’t going to be able to compete in tough Midwestern states like Michigan,” Cohen said. He added that Whitmer — who caught fire with a campaign slogan of “Fix the damn roads” — ran on “putting kitchen-table issues front and forward, and resulted in a huge win that a lot of folks didn’t think was possible. So to me, that is the key.”

Democrats already appear to be taking some consideration of Whitmer’s approach. The term-limited governor, along with Govs. Andy Beshear (Kentucky) and Josh Shapiro (Pennsylvania), are set to speak at the House Democratic Issues Conference this week.

Tariff twist

Trump’s tariffs have added a wrinkle to the early 2026 jockeying in Michigan, because support and opposition don’t fall along traditional party lines. They have earned the support of the influential United Auto Workers union, which opposed Trump in the 2024 election and which has a significant presence in Michigan. But retaliatory tariffs could be a complicating factor: Canada slapped retaliatory tariffs on energy in U.S. states including Michigan.

“Ontario is integral to the supply chain of the assembly plants in Detroit and Michigan, and I agree with Governor Whitmer that increased tariffs on Canadian auto parts would be very damaging to the Michigan economy,” Duggan told us in a statement. “Tariffs on Mexico or China, if done properly, could be very helpful to the Michigan auto industry.”

Gilchrist criticized the tariffs as “sloppily” designed and cited them as one of the issues on which he would challenge Trump. Asked about the UAW’s support for tariffs, Gilchrist said such “tools must be used responsibly, not destructively, and I see nothing from this administration that would lead me to believe” it is acting responsibly for people in Michigan.

Rep. John James (R-Michigan), who is considered a potential gubernatorial candidate, has broadly defended Trump’s tariff strategy, saying in a TV appearance this month that the administration is “using economic levers to secure our borders and to make sure that we have fairness across our economy.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Michigan), who represents the northernmost district of Michigan, offered a lukewarm endorsement of tariffs in an interview with us.

“The president is doing everything that he can humanly possible to put some rudder into this ship called our country, to get it back on course,” Bergman said. “Tariffs are a tool. The bottom line is Michigan is going to be fine because Michigan makes things.”

The Senate race

While Trump won Michigan in November, Democrat Elissa Slotkin won the Senate race to keep it under her party’s control. That has heartened Michigan Democrats, who are looking toward midterm elections in which Trump won’t be on the ballot — and national Democratic leaders have also taken notice of Slotkin, tapping her to deliver their official response to Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress last week.

In the 2026 Senate race, the most high-profile potential candidate is Pete Buttigieg, the former transportation secretary and 2020 presidential contender who moved to Traverse City in 2022. Buttigieg said in a TV interview Wednesday that he was “looking at” running but was still undecided.

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Michigan) is also exploring a run for the Senate seat and plans to make a decision next month, according to a person familiar with her plans.

On the GOP side, the Trump-backed 2024 nominee for Senate, former congressman Mike Rogers, has been the main potential candidate to watch. He wrote in an X post shortly after Peters’s announcement that he was “strongly considering joining the fight once again.”