Here are the Democratic women governors (VP speculation thread)
Biden has pledged to nominate a woman as his running mate. While most of the speculation has focused on women Senators (Harris seems widely guessed-at), I thought we might as well look at the governors too.
Laura Kelly of Kansas. Came up through the Kansas legislature, ran against Brownback's disastrous tax cuts and beat evil incarnate Kris Kobach. Protegee of Kathleen Sebelius. Conclusion: strong centrist creds, experience winning red states, but Kansas is probably just not in play this cycle.
Janet Mills of Maine. Former Maine AG. Ran a pro-LGBT, pro-environment campaign in Maine (a weird state politically) and won handily. Kind of a dark horse, and we probably don't need more votes in Maine.
Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. She spent time both in the state house and as a prosecutor. Came to national prominence by filibustering a bill that would have outlawed most abortions. National co-chair of Biden's campaign. That kind of says it all. If it's going to be a governor, Whitmer has a compelling set of arguments in her favor.
Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico. Hoo boy do I like Grisham. She doesn't have as much electoral history, coming up through the state HHS department. But she has great presence and charisma, and being experienced with health care administration can only be a plus in 2020.
Kate Brown of Oregon. I absolutely love governor Brown but I don't see it. The first openly LGBT governor of any state, she has pulled Oregon kicking and screaming forward on this issue (remember, Oregon is where the wedding cake case happened). She came up through the legislature and then as OR secretary of state. Probably does not add much to a national ticket, unfortunately. Guessing no.
Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island. She's an interesting dark horse. She's taken on payday lenders and check-cashing storefronts, and done amazing work on increasing Rhode Island's government transparency. But, liberal governor of a liberal state, doesn't really bring much new. Still, it's 2020 and weirder things have happened.
Special mention of Stacey Abrams, who would be governor of Georgia if the votes had been counted. I'm pretty sure we all are familiar with Abrams here. Phenomenal speaker, phenomenal organizer. If she could put Georgia in play the entire electoral map changes -- but that's a huge "if"; Georgia is still one of the worst states in the country in terms of voting transparency.
Anyways, my pick is: if it's going to be a governor, it will probably be Whitmer, but Grisham, Kelly, and Abrams shouldn't be ignored.
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