U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota will challenge Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday.
“I am, I have to,” Phillips told CBS News’ Robert Costa. “I think President Biden has done a spectacular job for our country. But it’s not about the past, this is an election about the future.”
“I will not sit still and I will not be quiet in the face of numbers that are so clearly saying that we’re going to be facing an emergency next November,” he added.
Phillips had been teasing a run for months on the grounds that Biden, the incumbent, is too old for a second term. That stance, which is at odds with virtually every other Democrat in Congress, prompted him earlier this month to leave his post on House Democrats’ leadership team.
“He’s a president of great competence and success, I admire the heck out of President Biden,” Phillips told Politico in February. “And if he were 15-20 years younger it would be a no-brainer to nominate him, but considering his age it’s absurd we’re not promoting competition but trying to extinguish it.”
Phillips has suggested that renominating Biden, now 80, would jeopardize the party’s hold on the presidency.
“Nobody wants to be the one to do something that would undermine the chances of a Democratic victory in 2024,” Phillips told Politico in February. “Yet in quiet rooms the conversation is just the opposite — we could be at a higher risk if this path is cleared.”
Phillips is expected to make an official announcement outside New Hampshire’s state capitol on Friday. The location suggests an interest in testing his mettle with the state’s famously independent-minded Democratic primary voters. While New Hampshire has not yet set a date for its 2024 presidential primary, Granite State law requires the state to host a primary before any other state in the country.
New Hampshire is poised, however, to violate the Democratic National Committee’s rules and, in the process, limit its role in the official nominating contest. In February, the DNC approved a new primary calendar in which South Carolina would go first. New Hampshire has refused to move its primary accordingly, leading the DNC to threaten to strip the state of convention delegates a candidate would need to win the presidential nomination. Biden’s campaign announced Tuesday that out of respect for DNC rules, he will not appear on the ballot in the New Hampshire primary.
Phillips might still try to use the contest to demonstrate public interest in an alternative to Biden.
The Minnesota native, a member of the business-friendly New Democrat Coalition who flipped a GOP-held seat in the Minneapolis suburbs in 2018, is likely to run a campaign focused on appealing to moderate voters. Earlier this week, observers spotted a Phillips presidential campaign bus in Ohio emblazoned with the slogans “Make America Affordable Again” and “Everyone’s Invited!” Phillips used the latter phrase in his 2022 reelection bid.
Phillips has proved to be an adept fundraiser, even as he rejects donations from political action committees, lobbyists and other members of Congress. He raised $2.3 million in the 2022 election cycle. As of the end of September, he had over $300,000 in cash on hand.
He also has the capacity to self-fund, should he choose to do so. An heir to, and former CEO of, the Phillips Distilling Company, Phillips was the 11th-richest Democratic member of Congress in 2022. To avoid conflicts of interest, he keeps his financial assets in a blind trust.
If successful, Phillips would make history as the first Jewish presidential nominee of one of the two main political parties. Marianne Williamson, a progressive bestselling author and self-help guru also seeking the Democratic nomination, is Jewish as well.