Gretchen Whitmer’s No-Bid Contract for Political Vendor Highlights Her Failed Leadership

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has bolstered her profile within the Democratic Party for promising to “fix the damn roads,” (she hasn’t fixed them) which resulted in delivering the party’s State of the Union Response. 

That rise in stature has put her square in the middle of speculation that she could be Joe Biden’s running mate. However, Whitmer has not done herself any favors with a clumsy response to the coronavirus.

As Michigan is hit hard by the coronavirus, Whitmer made sure to reward a campaign vendor. Her administration awarded a no-bid contract to conduct COVID-19 contact tracing to a company that also was contracted to national Democrats and Joe Biden.

National Review: “Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s administration hired a tech firm known for working with Democratic campaigns to track contact information about residents as part of the state’s efforts to trace coronavirus cases.”

The state was unable to clearly respond to questions from the press about why they went with a political firm for collecting healthcare data. In fact, two contradictory statements came out from Whitmer’s administration on the same day. One announcing the contract and another saying NGP VAN was no longer under consideration.  

Whitmer ended up ordering the cancellation of the contract, saying that it did not go through the proper channels. Whitmer further claimed that operations hadn’t really begun, but that would contrast with how the contract was originally discovered: the firm’s information was printed on materials for volunteers. 

Considering that Michigan’s contact tracing efforts began in March, Whitmer will have to answer questions about who ran the process to award the contract and what she and her staff knew. Until Whitmer fully explains who knows what, questions will persist about favoritism and why a political organization was about to be given access to critical health data.