Thank you Senator Gary Peters for your service to Michigan and this country. We will miss your oversight work, your accountability for Louis DeJoy at the US Postal Service, your support for soldiers and veterans across the globe, and your knowledge of national security and foreign policy.
Michigan Lt. Governor, and governing partner for Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Garlin Gilchrist is a rising star in his state. He is capable of bringing the energy, enthusiasm, leadership, and experience needed to hold this crucial Senate seat in 2026.
Beyond breaking barriers and making history, as Senator Tammy Baldwin says, Lt. Governor Gilchrist is making a difference, and making an impact on working families and the middle class every day. He is a progressive champion for economic, racial, and social justice.
As Lt. Governor, he led the state alongside Governor Whitmer through Michigan's most difficult times. He ran the coronavirus pandemic task force responsible for addressing racial equity issues that existed in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths, and how the pandemic impacted the healthcare system regionally as a whole.
He is a leader on criminal justice reform and second chances for those impacted by the buildup of the prison-industrial complex and its system of endless mass incarceration, including by leading on the push for reform with bipartisan bills.
He has been partnering with Governor Whitmer and the state legislature as they passed a historic legislative program to expand labor rights, strengthen consumer safety, implement a climate crisis response program and a renewable energy portfolio, invest in Michigan manufacturing jobs, expand educational and workforce opportunities, support veterans, protect the right to vote, codify the right to abortion, pass gun safety legislation, and keep marriage equality in place.
He has been an outspoken advocate for both the Israeli hostages and innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza going back as early as 2023.
And as a software engineer and online grassroots organizer in the past, he will be equipped to deal with the national security and economic issues around artificial intelligence, tech regulation, the semiconductor industry, and quantum computing.
Lt. Governor Gilchrist not only has promised to do things. He has done them in Michigan, and he will do it in the US Senate.
He is the candidate most capable of bringing the multiracial, multiethnic, multigenerational, and multireligious working class coalition needed to win in Michigan. I am confident he will do just that if he runs for this seat.
I hope Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist will listen to us, which can be boosted by your support, if you sign your name onto this petition. Thank you.
-Michael Salzillo
