to the polls today. kansas, michigan, missouri, and washington are also in play, as democrats remain just 23 seats shy of controlling the house. but there s another story line shaping up in the gubernatorial races. as the new york times points out, the surge of women running for office could be the biggest breakthrough in america s gubernatorial races. as the times writes, quote, nowhere is the challenge as great as it is in the midwest, which was the last region to elect a female governor. and where a woman has not been elected since jennifer granholm of michigan, a democrat, left office in 2011. with me now is one of those channelers, gretchen whitmore. she s hoping to be michigan s democratic nominee in the state s gubernatorial race. gretchen, thanks very much for being here. i want to start about asking you about the late-breaking dynamics in this race. your progressive challenger releasing a medicare-for-all single-payer health care plan that seems to have at the very least c
as classic welfare, cash assistance, they would have a hard time gettinging citizenship. generally, they want to see you prove that you are table to work here if you re getting a green card or moving from green card to citizenship. what is changing is how much they are broadening this. they re going after so many social programs that could be potential disqualifiers. that would be like, if you ve used the insurance exchange that s provided through obamacare, if you ve had children s health insurance, which in a lot of states is given to people well above the poverty line, or if you ve used food stamps. some versions even included heat assistance. a lot of things that are, yes, given to people who might be falling through the cracks, and who need a social safety net, but also things given to people who could be making as much as 250% of the poverty line. julia ainsley, thanks so much for shining a light on this. kasie. coming up, michigan s race for governor is testing the limits
michigan. do you think that there s anything that president trump has done in office that you would commend him for? well, you know, he has given lip service, anyway, to rebuilding the sue lox, which is in the upper peninsula, is the gateway for so much international commerce. our state depends on that gateaway remaining open and it s dangerously old. so if he actually starts to take steps towards doing that, i would be grateful, and certainly everyone in my state would be. gretchen whitmore, running to be the democratic nominee in michigan s race for governor, we ll be watching closely. thank you so much for your time today. thank you, kasie. joining me now is sahil kapur, a national political reporter for bloomberg politics. sahil, let s talk a little bit about this michigan governor s race to start. it does seem as though it feels to me like a familiar dynamic, and maybe i ve overlearned the lessons of having covered bernie sanders surprise win in michigan on the ground
outside of the political system. right, there s that spectrum, there s the outsider/insider spectrum, and there is the ideological spectrum. and i think this resembles the bernie sanders versus hillary clinton proxy battle in a way, because that was a genuine difference of opinion in what direction to go, how to campaign, how to think about issues inside the democratic party. you have the center-left candidate in hillary clinton, who gretchen whitmore sounded very much in the mold of, you know, kind of, remember hillary clinton s phrase, i m a progressive who likes to get things done? yes, indeed. that s almost exactly how she s campaigning, where you have abdul sayyed who s running a as a progressive candidate on medicare for all, a much bolder, loftier vision, even if it may not be achievable in the near future, some progressives believe that s the way to galvanize the base. the big x factor is women. the democratic base have decided to turn a corner and they want more women
worried what happens in michigan tomorrow and in the coming months. we know that unions are people. we re talking about people. we re talking about our nurses and our teachers and our social workers, our first responders, our corrections officers. we re talking about people. this is the middle class. these are families that are going to be impacted by this. for what? this is about politics and nothing more. these guys want to spin it that it s about something bigger. and it s just not true. this is about people s lives. and, you know, we can t afford to let this happen. and if it happens in michigan, it could happen anywhere. senator whitmore and secretary reich, thank you for your time. we re going to be watching this closely and hope to have both of you back on. thanks very much. thank you. ahead, mitt romney spotted in ver vegas watching a boxing knock t knockout. kind of fitting for a party searching for a leader, mayor of