Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who was a top surrogate for President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, says his blockbuster announcement that he was ending his 2024 bid came as a complete surprise.

“By the same token, I think it was the right decision and that’s why we have a vice president. Kamala Harris has been his number two for four years,” Whitmer said. “No one should be surprised that he steps away, that she’s the one to step into the breach.”

The president on Sunday suspended his 2024 re-election rematch with former President Donald Trump. Biden made his move amid mounting pressure from within the Democratic Party for him to drop out after a disastrous performance in last month’s first presidential debate with Trump.

The embattled president’s immediate backing of Vice President Harris ignited a surge of endorsements of Harris by Democratic governors, senators, House members and other party leaders. By Monday night, the vice president announced that she had locked up her party’s nomination by landing the backing of a majority of the nearly 4,000 delegates to next month’s Democratic National Convention. On Friday morning, former President Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama became the final major party leaders to endorse Harris.

Harris has also hauled in a staggering $129 million in fundraising since Biden’s announcement, her campaign boasted on Thursday morning.

Republicans charge that the process has been anything but democratic - and they point to Biden’s own words.

Before dropping out, the president had repeatedly cited the 14 million votes he won in this year’s Democratic presidential primaries as a reason he should stay in the 2024 race.

“The voters – and the voters alone – decide the nominee of the Democratic Party,” he emphasized in a letter on July 8. “Not the press, not the pundits, not the big donors, not any selected group of individuals, no matter how well-intentioned.”

Trump, at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina on Wednesday called the switch at the top of the Democrats’ national ticket “an undemocratic move.”

“These are nasty people, the Democrats,” Trump argued.

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas claimed in a social media post this week that “Joe Biden succumbed to a coup by Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Hollywood donors, ignoring millions of Democratic primary votes.”

Whitmer dismissed the notion. 

“It is hard to take the Republican criticism seriously because one day it’s ‘Joe Biden shouldn’t be running.’ The next day it’s ‘well he should be running,’”she said. “Give me a break.”

Whitmer was interviewed Thursday evening at a house party in Durham, during her third and final campaign event of the day on behalf of Harris in the swing state of New Hampshire.

Whitmer’s name has repeatedly come up this week – among other high profile Democratic Party leaders – as a potential running mate for Harris.

The governor said she plans to stay put.

“I am not a part of the process. I made it very clear that I am committed to fulfilling my term as governor in Michigan, and so I’m not going anywhere,” Whitmer said. “I think I can be an even better ally to a Harris administration on the ground in Michigan.”

Whitmer, who was a co-chair of the Biden campaign and is now a co-chair of the Harris campaign, did say that America is ready for two women on a national ticket.

“Of course, America can have two women on a national ticket. We’ve had two men since the dawn of time. Women can lead as we’ve shown in many states where you’ve had great women leaders,” she said. “Women know how to get things done. So two women would be better than one.”

No Republican has carried New Hampshire in a presidential election in the last 24 years, but recent polling suggested a margin-of-error contest between Biden and Trump.

But two new public opinion surveys released on Thursday from the University of New Hampshire and Saint Anselm College indicated Harris holding single digit leads over Trump in the Granite State.

Billy Shaheen, one of New Hampshire’s two members on the Democratic National Committee and the husband of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, was at the Durham house party where Whitmer drew cheers from the crowd of a couple of hundred party activists.

“A phenomenal crowd,” he said. “They are pumped. And you know what wins elections? Passion. Passion wins elections. This crowd is passionate.”

John Tackeff, a longtime Democratic Party activist in New Hampshire and former strategist, agreed.

“Friends of mine who are not politically involved at all have been asking me the past couple of days how to get involved,” he said. “It’s truly shocking to see the moment in the past couples of days.”

But New Hampshire GOP chair Chris Ager sees it a different way when it comes to Harris.

“Democrat party elites and corporate money have coronated the most extreme left-wing U.S. Senator as their nominee, without voter vetting. After the honeymoon period, voters will once again reject her hard-core leftist agenda,” he said in a statement.