He's a gravelly-voiced guy from Flint, a place nobody spent much time thinking about until last month.
But Dan Kildee has. He was born there. He was raised there. And he became one of the youngest public officials in the country when he was elected to the local school board at 18 (not dissimilar to the path followed by his friend, liberal filmmaker and Flint native Michael Moore).
Now Kildee, 57, is Flint's congressman (succeeding his uncle, Dale, in 2012). Many Democrats had been talking up the younger Kildee for governor in three years.
But there were plenty who doubted he could win in 2018. Democrats traditionally like their nominees to hail from metro Detroit, where the big media markets are and so are the votes. (That's why many are enamored with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan running, although he's gruffly brushed off any speculation.)