Christine Todd Whitman

Christine Temple Whitman (née Todd; born September 26, 1946) is an American politician and author serving as National Co-chair of the Forward Party since 2022. She was New Jersey's first female governor. Born in New York City to a Republican political family, Whitman graduated from Wheaton College in 1968 and began her political career in the Nixon administration's Office of Economic Opportunity. After coming within three percentage points of unseating U . Senator Bill Bradley in 1990, she ran for governor of New Jersey, defeating Democratic incumbent Jim Florio. A self-described Rockefeller Republican, Whitman defeated Democrat Jim McGreevey to win re-election in 1997. She remained governor until stepping down in 2001 to become Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, where she served until 2003. During her tenure at the EPA, Whitman was noted for having assured the public that the air in lower Manhattan was safe to breathe following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001; she apologized in 2016 for having made this statement. In 2022, Whitman joined former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang to form the Forward Party, a centrist third party.