Jennifer Mulhern Granholm (born February 5, 1959) is a Canadian-born American politician who served as the 16th United States secretary of energy from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously worked as the 47th governor of Michigan from 2003 to 2011 and as the 51st attorney general of Michigan from 1999 to 2003. She was the first woman to hold either of these positions.
She was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and moved to California when she was four years old. Granholm earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1984 and a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1987. She worked as a clerk for Judge Damon Keith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She later became an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan in 1991 and was appointed to the Wayne County Corporation Counsel in 1995.
In 1998, Granholm ran for attorney general of Michigan and defeated the Republican candidate, John Smietanka. She ran for governor of Michigan in 2002 and was elected as the state’s first female governor. She was re-elected in 2006.
Granholm was part of the team that helped prepare for President Barack Obama’s work before he became president in 2009. After leaving public office, she worked at the University of California, Berkeley. She and her husband, Daniel Mulhern, wrote a book titled A Governor's Story: The Fight for Jobs and America's Future, which was published in 2011. She later became the host of The War Room with Jennifer Granholm. In 2017, she joined CNN as a political contributor.
In 2020, President-elect Joe Biden announced his plan to nominate Granholm to lead the United States Department of Energy. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2021. After completing her term as secretary, she joined the DGA Group.
Early life and education
Granholm was born on February 5, 1959, in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Shirley Alfreda (born as Dowden) and Victor Ivar Granholm, both of whom worked as bank tellers. Granholm’s maternal grandparents were from Ireland and Newfoundland. Her paternal grandfather was Hugo "Anders" Granholm, who moved to Penny, British Columbia, Canada, in the late 1920s from Robertsfors, Sweden, where his father was the mayor. Maud Olofsson, a former Minister for Enterprise and Energy and former deputy prime minister of Sweden, lives in Robertsfors. When Granholm and Olofsson met in Sweden, the media found out that Olofsson’s husband is related to Granholm. Granholm’s paternal grandmother was Judith Olivia Henriette (Solstad) Granholm, who emigrated from Gjerstad in southern Norway. She traveled by ship from Oslo to Halifax and then by train to Penny, British Columbia, where her uncles and others had created a small logging village.
Granholm’s family moved to California when she was four years old. She grew up in Anaheim, San Jose, and San Carlos. She attended Ida Price Junior High and Del Mar High School before graduating from San Carlos High School in 1977 and winning the Miss San Carlos beauty pageant. As a young adult, she tried to start a career in Hollywood acting but stopped at age 21. In 1978, she appeared on The Dating Game and worked as a tour guide at Universal Studios, in customer service at the Los Angeles Times, and as the first female tour guide at Marine World/Africa USA in Redwood City, where she led boats carrying 25 tourists.
In 1980, at age 21, Granholm became a naturalized U.S. citizen. She worked for John B. Anderson’s campaign for president of the United States as an Independent in the 1980 election. She then enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, becoming the first person in her family to attend college. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in 1984 with a B.A. in political science and French. During a year in France, she helped send clothes and medical supplies to Jewish people in the Soviet Union and joined the anti-apartheid movement. She later earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard University, also with honors, in 1987. At Harvard Law School, Granholm served as editor-in-chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.
Early career
After graduating from Harvard Law School, Granholm worked as a clerk for Judge Damon Keith, a senior judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, from 1987 to 1988. She also worked for the 1988 presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis. From 1989 to 1991, she worked as an attorney in the Wayne County executive office. In 1991, Granholm became an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. She helped prosecute drug dealers, gang members, and people who made or shared child pornography. She also sued the state and worked to stop credit card fraud. Out of 154 people Granholm tried in court, 151 were found guilty. In 1995, she was appointed as Corporation Counsel for Wayne County, the youngest person to hold that position. In this role, she defended the county against lawsuits, sued the state over road taxes, and worked to protect environmental laws.
Michigan Attorney General (1999–2003)
After 37 years in office, Democratic Attorney General Frank J. Kelley decided not to run for a 10th term in 1998. Jennifer Granholm entered the race to replace him. She did not have any other candidates from the Democratic party and faced Republican John Smietanka, who had run for office in 1994 and had previously worked as a U.S. attorney in Michigan. The campaign began with both candidates agreeing on goals, such as expanding the Internet Crimes Unit, creating neighborhood-based crime-fighting programs, and continuing to support consumer rights, as Kelley had done.
However, the campaign became difficult in mid-September when Smietanka ran television ads that described Granholm as "inexperienced" and "dangerous." He also tried to connect her to a crime plan proposed by Geoffrey Fieger, a Democratic candidate for governor, which suggested longer prison terms for non-violent criminals. Granholm said the claim was false and stated that as attorney general, her job was to protect people from misleading ads. She asked what made her different from Smietanka and said, "Besides honesty?" Kelley also supported Granholm, appearing in an ad where he called Smietanka's ads "garbage" and accused him of running an unfair campaign. Smietanka was upset when Democrats ran ads about his late child support payments and claimed he had lied about how much money he donated to his campaign.
In a close race, with polls showing nearly equal support for both candidates, Granholm won with 1,557,310 votes (52.09%) compared to Smietanka’s 1,432,604 votes (47.91%). After Granholm became governor in 2002, Smietanka and Republican Governor John Engler argued about who was most responsible for her political success. Smietanka blamed Engler for pushing him out of the 1998 race in favor of another candidate, for bringing up his missed child support payments, and for not supporting him after he won the Republican convention. Engler said Smietanka was not a strong candidate and should have stepped aside for another candidate who could have defeated Granholm.
Granholm was sworn into office on January 1, 1999, becoming the first female attorney general of Michigan. She served one term from 1999 to 2003. During her time in office, she continued Kelley’s work to protect citizens and consumers’ rights and created Michigan’s first High Tech Crime Unit, appointing Terrence Berg as its first chief.
In April 1999, Granholm filed a lawsuit against RVP Development, the company that built the Arcadia Bluffs Golf Course. She claimed poor construction led to illegal sediment discharge into Lake Michigan after heavy storms in 1998, which damaged the land. The company’s president refused to pay a $425,000 fine, saying he had taken steps to stop erosion and accused Granholm of trying to make him a political example. Granholm responded that his understanding of Michigan’s politics was poor. After years of legal discussions, the case was settled in August 2003, with RVP Development agreeing to pay a $125,000 fine.
During her time as attorney general, Granholm strongly opposed the annual "Naked Mile" event at the University of Michigan. Her efforts led to the event being canceled by April 2000 and not returning. In July 2000, Granholm’s office reached a settlement with J.C. Penney after the company made repeated pricing errors in Michigan stores. The issue was discovered after a high rate of errors in December 1999, with 33% of items being priced incorrectly. J.C. Penney paid a fine and agreed to hire staff to check for pricing mistakes.
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Granholm worked with state agencies and lawmakers to ensure efforts against terrorism stayed within state powers. She also required gasoline dealers to avoid sharply raising prices, which had happened in some areas of Michigan after the attacks. In February 2002, Granholm announced her office would partner with AARP Michigan to help consumers deal with unwanted telemarketing calls.
Governor of Michigan (2003–2011)
In the 2002 election, John Engler, the current Republican governor, could not run again because of term limits. The Republicans chose to support Engler’s lieutenant governor, Dick Posthumus, as their candidate. At the same time, Jennifer Granholm faced a tough primary election against James Blanchard, a former U.S. ambassador to Canada and governor, and David E. Bonior, a former U.S. House Minority Whip. Blanchard had lost to Engler in 1990, and Bonior had left his position as Democratic whip to run for governor after his House district was redrawn, making it very hard for him to win.
Granholm was viewed as a new candidate after the long Engler administration. She raised more money than Blanchard and Bonior and led them in polls by large amounts. Her campaign increased voter turnout among women, and she won the Democratic primary with 499,129 votes (47.69%) compared to Bonior’s 292,958 (27.99%) and Blanchard’s 254,586 (24.32%).
Granholm was the favorite in the general election, with strong support from working women, African-Americans, and voters under 30 years old. She campaigned on her record of reducing crime and was seen as more charismatic than Posthumus. Even though Republicans had a good year nationwide in 2002, winning control of the U.S. Senate and increasing their power in the House, Granholm defeated Posthumus by 1,633,796 votes (51.42%) to 1,506,104 (47.40%).
Granholm was sworn in as the 47th governor of Michigan on January 1, 2003. She became the state’s first female governor and the third governor who was not a natural-born U.S. citizen and the fourth who was not born in the United States. The earlier two non-natural-born governors were Fred M. Warner, born in England, and John Swainson, born in Canada. George W. Romney, born in Mexico, was a natural-born citizen because his parents were U.S. citizens at the time of his birth.
Granholm focused on attracting young people and businesses through the Cool Cities Initiative. As governor, she was a member of the National Governors Association, leading its Health and Human Services Committee and co-leading its Health Care Task Force. She also chaired the Midwestern Governors Association. She lived in the official Michigan Governor’s Residence near the Capitol Building.
In her first year, Granholm made many budget cuts to address a $1.7 billion deficit, about 2% of the state’s annual budget. She was upset by plans to reduce funding for social welfare programs, such as homeless shelters and mental health agencies.
Granholm supported education reform from the start of her term. In her first State of the State Address in 2003, she announced Project Great Start, a program to improve education for children from birth to age five. The program brought together public and private efforts to teach new parents and encourage reading to children.
Granholm focused on post-secondary education for Michiganders after the decline of manufacturing jobs, many of which did not require college degrees. In 2004, she asked Lieutenant Governor John D. Cherry to lead the Commission on Higher Education and Economic Growth to double the number of college graduates in Michigan. Many of the commission’s recommendations were turned into laws during her term, such as raising high school graduation standards (The Michigan Merit Curriculum). This required every high school student to take a college preparatory curriculum, including four years of math and English, and three years of science and social studies, starting with students entering high school in 2006.
In 2004, Granholm was inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame. She also received the Michigan Jaycees “Outstanding Young Michiganders” award and the YWCA “Woman of the Year” award.
During the 2004 presidential election, Granholm supported Democratic nominee John Kerry after early polls showed President George W. Bush with a small lead. She said the economy was the main concern for Michiganders, not the Iraq War or the war on terror. She noted that the state faced challenges like a large budget deficit, falling stock prices, rising unemployment, lower-than-expected profits at General Motors, and shortages of flu vaccines.
In February 2005, Michigan’s Republican-led legislature refused to vote on Granholm’s proposed state budget, citing concerns over cuts to higher education funding. In previous years, many cuts to higher education had been approved to balance the state budget. Republican leaders had called Granholm a “do-nothing governor,” while Democrats accused Republicans of being obstructionist. In January 2005, Granholm presented an early budget proposal and demanded a quick response from the legislature. After refusing to debate or vote on the budget, Republicans said they wanted more involvement from the legislature in creating the state budget.
Michigan’s economy had been losing jobs since 2000, mainly because of the decline in American manufacturing. Granholm supported diversifying the state’s economy away from its reliance on automotive manufacturing. She pushed for a $2 billion 21st Century Jobs Fund to attract jobs in life sciences, alternative energy, advanced manufacturing, and homeland security.
Granholm ran for a second term in the 2006 election. Her opponent was Republican businessman Dick DeVos. Both campaigns used television ads produced by Joe Slade White to highlight Granholm’s efforts to revive the economy and accuse DeVos of cutting jobs while he was at Amway. Granholm won re-election, defeating DeVos with 56% of the vote compared to DeVos’s 42%. Minor-party candidates received just over 1%. Granholm’s vote share was 4.9% higher than in her first election in 2002. Her campaign was managed by Howard Edelson.
The 2006 elections saw Democrats regain control of the State House of Representatives, while Republicans kept control of the State Senate. This led to a conflict between Granholm and lawmakers over the FY 2008 state budget, which caused a four-hour shutdown of nonessential state services on October 1, 2007, until the budget was passed. The budget cut services, froze spending in areas like the arts, increased the state income tax, and added new taxes on businesses
Subsequent career
Jennifer Granholm is a respected part-time professor of law and public policy at the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy and UC Berkeley School of Law. In the fall of 2011, she taught a graduate course called "Governing in Tough Times." She is also a senior research fellow at the Berkeley Energy and Climate Institute (BECI). As a senior advisor to The Pew Charitable Trusts' Clean Energy Program and founder of The American Jobs Project at UC Berkeley, Granholm leads efforts to create a national clean energy policy that supports American energy independence and home-grown manufacturing and innovation in wind, solar, and advanced battery industries across the United States. She regularly writes for NBC's political talk show Meet the Press, has written about U.S. energy policy, and co-authored a book with her husband, A Governor's Story: The Fight For Jobs and America's Economic Future, which was published in September 2011 and discussed lessons from Michigan's experience for the United States.
Granholm served on the board of directors of the Dow Chemical Company from March to October 2011. In May 2011, she joined the board of directors of Marinette Marine Corporation, a Wisconsin shipbuilder and defense contractor. She is currently the sponsor of USS Marinette, a warship being built by the company. In August 2013, she joined the board of Talmer Bancorp, a Michigan financial institution, and remained on the board until the bank was sold in September 2016. In August 2016, she joined the board of ChargePoint, a company that manages a network of electric vehicle charging stations. In March 2017, she also joined the board of Proterra, a manufacturer of electric buses and charging stations.
In October 2011, Current TV announced that she would join its new political primetime lineup as host of the program The War Room with Jennifer Granholm. In January 2013, she announced she was leaving the network after it was sold to Al Jazeera.
In October 2012, Granholm became widely known after giving a speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 6. Her speech focused on the automotive industry crisis of 2008–2010, including President Obama's decision to bail out General Motors and Chrysler, the benefits of the bailout for the U.S. economy, and Mitt Romney's opposition to the bailout.
In January 2014, she was chosen to co-chair Priorities USA Action with Jim Messina. She previously said Hillary Clinton was the strongest candidate for the 2016 presidential election if she decided to run. Granholm supported Clinton over Barack Obama in the 2008 election campaign. She considered running for the U.S. Senate in 2014 to replace retiring Democrat Carl Levin but decided against it.
In August 2015, after Hillary Clinton announced her campaign for the 2016 presidential election, Granholm moved from Priorities USA Action to Correct the Record, a Clinton-aligned political committee that allows her to serve as a direct representative for Clinton on the campaign trail. In August 2016, Granholm was named by Clinton to the team planning for her potential presidential transition.
Granholm was twice considered as a possible U.S. Secretary of Energy. First, in December 2008, when President-elect Obama was forming his first-term Cabinet, and again in December 2010, when it was rumored that Secretary Steven Chu might resign.
She was also twice considered by President Obama as a potential Supreme Court candidate. In May 2009, she was on the shortlist to replace retiring Associate Justice David Souter. She attended a CAFE standards meeting at the White House on May 19 and spoke with Obama, but officials did not comment on whether they discussed a potential court appointment. Obama chose Sonia Sotomayor, who was confirmed by the Senate in August. After the retirement of Associate Justice John Paul Stevens in May 2010, Granholm was again mentioned as a potential candidate; Obama chose Elena Kagan, who was confirmed in August.
In March 2011, when Tim Kaine was preparing to resign as chairman of the Democratic National Committee to run for the U.S. Senate in 2012, Granholm was mentioned as a potential successor. However, she stated early on that she was not interested, which surprised senior Democrats. U.S. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida was elected instead.
After President Obama was re-elected in 2012, Granholm was reportedly considered for a position in Obama's second-term Cabinet, such as secretary of energy, secretary of transportation, secretary of labor, or attorney general. She downplayed these rumors, citing her criticism of Republicans during the 2012 election and her work on Current TV.
In March 2013, Michigan's senior U.S. senator, Democrat Carl Levin, announced he would not run for a seventh term in 2014. Granholm was mentioned as a candidate to replace him but later said she would not run. She endorsed U.S. Representative Gary Peters, who won the general election.
In September 2014, when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced his intention to step down, there was speculation that Granholm might be considered for the position. Loretta Lynch was ultimately nominated and confirmed.
There was speculation that Granholm's increased visibility from her senior role in the Clinton campaign indicated she might be considered for a position in the U.S. Cabinet or Democratic National Committee leadership if Clinton had won the 2016 election.
Secretary of Energy (2021–2025)
President-elect Joe Biden chose Granholm to be the next secretary of energy. Granholm was one of Biden's least controversial choices, gaining support from unions, environmental groups, and some Republicans. Daniel Kammen, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who worked with Granholm, said she would be "very effective for the Department of Energy" because "she understands technology, how to use it, and how to manage a large organization." She met with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on January 27, 2021. The committee approved her nomination with a 13–4 vote on February 3, 2021. The Senate confirmed her nomination on February 25, 2021, with a 64–35 vote. She was sworn into office later that day by Vice President Kamala Harris. Granholm is the first secretary of energy born outside the United States.
In April 2021, she said President Joe Biden aims to reduce the country’s carbon dioxide emissions to zero by 2050. This requires finding ways to reduce pollution from the fossil fuel industry. On May 19, 2022, the Department of Energy announced a $3.5 billion program, funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, to create four large-scale regional projects that remove carbon dioxide from the air.
Granholm spoke with Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud. They discussed ways to work together in the energy field. In late 2021, she said the OPEC oil group, led by Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. gas and petroleum industry were partly responsible for rising fuel prices in the United States. When asked about increasing U.S. oil production, she joked, "That is hilarious. Would that I had the magic wand on this."
Granholm signed an agreement about ethics for her position as the top energy official. Later, she broke some rules related to financial interests under the STOCK Act.
On December 16, 2022, Granholm cleared J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American physicist known as the "father of the atomic bomb" for his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II, of a 1954 decision to revoke his security clearance. This decision was based on a "flawed investigation."
Post-Biden administration career
After finishing her term as Secretary of Energy, Granholm began working at the lobbying firm DGA Group as a senior advisor. In November 2025, Granholm was named co-chair of New Jersey Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill's committee to examine energy costs in New Jersey.
Personal life
While Granholm was at Harvard, she met another law student named Daniel Mulhern, who was from Michigan and had studied theology at Yale University. They married in 1986 and used each other's last names as their middle names. They have three children.
On October 21, 2010, Granholm was named a Commander of the Royal Order of the Polar Star, First Class, by the King of Sweden. This honor was given for her work in helping to build relationships between Michigan and Sweden to support a clean energy economy.
Granholm is Catholic. She became a Catholic while she was studying at Harvard Law School.