Gretchen Whitmer's campaign confirms that Garlin Gilchrist II of Detroit is her lieutenant governor running mate.
Garlin Gilchrist II makes it official Monday morning in Lansing.
(University of Michigan photo by Jeffrey M. Smith)
The city government's past director of innovation and emerging technology will stand alongside Whitmer at a Monday morning announcemenbt in Lansing, as Kathleen Gray first reported in the Detroit Free Press:
The selection of Gilchrist achieves several goals for Whitmer: it gets a Detroiter on the ballot for the Nov. 6 general election and an African American. And on the statewide Democratic ticket, which now includes [four] white women, . . . Gilchrist also provides some gender diversity.
The 35-year-old, who narrowly lost a race for city clerk last fall, in February became the first executive director of the Center for Social Media Responsibility at the University of Michigan's School of Information. He has a 2005 computer science degree from U of M.
The Republican nominee for governor, state Attorney General Bill Schuette, last week picked former state Rep. Lisa Posthumus Lyons as his ticket mate. She is the daughter of Dick Posthumus, Gov. Rick Snyder's chief of staff. Snyder is no friend of Schuette's.
Gilchrist's No. 2 candidacy was forecast four months ago by Chad Livengood in a Crain's Detroit Business blog post:
The Democrats' search for a next-generation leader who can help Whitmer, a Lansing insider who's still not well known in Detroit, may lead to Corktown, where a 35-year-old computer engineer is putting down roots in his native city.
Garlin Gilchrist II took many by surprise last fall when he mounted a grassroots campaign to unseat City Clerk Janice Winfrey. While his effort came up 1,482 votes short, Gilchrist's ability to marshal support and talk about modernizing a city department that has long been viewed as a source of governmental ineptitude did not go unnoticed.
Here's what the Detroiter told School of Information graduates in Ann Arbor three months ago:
