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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host, David Axelrod.

It was a heck of a first term for Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. She earned the Emnity of Donald Trump, endured a FOILed assassination plot,

and steadfastly led her state through a tumultuous time. And in November, she emerged as perhaps the biggest winner of what turned out to be a far better midterm election for Democrats than anyone expected.

I sat down with her this week to talk about all of this, and here's that conversation.

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Governor Whitmer, it's great to see you again. It's been up a few years. A lot has happened since the last time we got together here. Hope you had a nice holiday.

Thank you. Yes, it was very quiet, which was a wonderful change in the speed of traveling the last four years.

No, I bet. I'm sure it's a relief to have just one job now, which is being governor. You are a candidate and governor for quite a while there.

I was thinking about you as I was thinking about this over the holidays, because I know you're a huge sports fan. And that, you know, at one point, you were headed to ESPN. That was your aspiration.

We talked about that last time. What do you do as a Michigan state person when Michigan is in the hunt for the national championship?

I mean, do you feel conflict? I know your daughters are at Michigan. So yeah, while you know as a parent of a couple of Wolverines and the governor of Michigan, you grouped for whatever Michigan team is playing now prior to parenting.

Wolverines have been elected down there. I don't know if I would have been a several so strategic, but anytime Michigan wins, it's good for the state. So I'm all for it.

Well, they had a great year. You had a better year, actually, than they did. You went all the way. They almost made it.

So tell me you won by 11 points in a race that everybody thought would be very close in a year that everybody thought would be kind of a disaster for Democrats. Give me your expert analysis and leaving aside your attestations to your essential greatness.

Tell me what you think. Why did it turn out the way it did?

I think there were a lot of things outplay here in Michigan. And you know, I'm getting lots of questions. How can we replicate what you guys didn't Michigan because this is only happened four times previously in 130 years to have it happen in a midterm where we take back both the house in the Senate when all the statewide constitutional offices and get all the ballot initiatives passed.

It's a really exciting outcome, not one that I think anyone expected, including me. I knew the path was there, but I thought in a midterm after all the tough stuff we've had to navigate from threats to global pandemics to climate events.

I didn't know if we'd realize it all in one else, but we did. And I think there are a lot of ingredients that made this unique moment in Michigan happen.

And what I think was we amended our Constitution a few years ago to take redistricting away from the legislature. And so for the first time in decades, we had districts that were more fairly drawn.

Some more people were engaged in those races.

More people were engaged and they weren't decided by the fringe and just a primary. They were competitive races where you got more pragmatic problem solvers over the finish line than ideologues.

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