MINNEAPOLIS– U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota ended his long-awaited 2024 Democratic presidential bid on Wednesday after failing to win a primary against President Joe Biden.
Phillips told WCCO Radio in Minneapolis that he supported Biden.
Phillips, a 55-year-old multimillionaire who is among the wealthiest members of Congress, built his bid for the White House around calls for a new generation of Democratic leadership while spending freely from his personal fortune. But the little-known congressman ultimately failed to resonate with the party’s voters.
Phillips was the only elected Democrat to challenge Biden for the presidency. Phillips’ failure to gain traction is further evidence that Democratic voters are behind the 81-year-old Biden, even as many have doubts about his age or his reelection prospects.
The president has long cast himself as uniquely qualified to defeat Republican Donald Trump again after his 2020 victory, and his reelection campaign largely ignored Phillips except to point out that the congressman spent nearly 100% of the time in Congress with the government voted.
Phillips often argued that Biden was too old for a second term. But on Wednesday, Phillips noted in a social media post that Biden had once visited his home when he was vice president and that his “decency and wisdom were rarities in politics then, and even more so today.”
“We only have two,” Phillips told WCCO. “And it will be Donald Trump or Joe Biden. And while I do think the President is at a stage of life where his capabilities are waning, he is still a man of competence, decency and integrity. And the alternative, Donald Trump is a very dangerous, dangerous man.”
Phillips’ endorsement of Biden appears to rule out participation as an outside challenger on a possible No Labels ticket.
A centerpiece of Phillips’ campaign to upset Biden took place in New Hampshire, where he campaigned hard, hoping to capitalize on state Democrats’ frustration over a new Democratic National Committee plan championed by Biden that would see the party’s 2024 presidential primaries were rescheduled by directing the election. leaves with South Carolina on February 3.
But instead of pulling off a surprise in New Hampshire, Phillips finished a distant second in the state’s unsanctioned primary, following a write-in campaign in which Democrats voted for Biden despite his name not being on the ballot.
After that defeat, Phillips pressed on to South Carolina and the formal start of the primaries. But the DNC has not scheduled a primary, and the Democratic parties of some states, including North Carolina and Florida, don’t even plan to hold primaries — making it even harder to challenge the incumbent president. Phillips lost South Carolina and every other state he competed in.
Before the Minnesota primaries on Super Tuesday, barely any of the nearly two dozen Democratic voters interviewed in Phillips’ congressional district mentioned his presidential campaign. Hopkins’ James Calderaro knew Phillips was a candidate but dismissed him as “a distraction.” Calderaro and others said they were backing Biden for the best chance to stop Trump in November.
Phillips has already announced he will not seek re-election in his suburban Minneapolis congressional district. He is heir to his stepfather’s Phillips Distilling Co. empire and was that company’s president, but he also ran the ice cream maker Talenti. His grandmother was Pauline Phillips, better known as the advice columnist Dear Abby.
Driving a gelato truck helped Phillips win his first House campaign in 2018, when he unseated five-term Republican Erik Paulsen. While Phillips’ district in largely affluent Minneapolis is more Democratic-leaning, he emphasized that he is a moderate and focuses on his suburban voters.
However, while running for president, Phillips moved further to the left and fully supported government-funded health care through “Medicare for All.”
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Weissert reported from Washington.
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