CONCORD, N.H. (CN) — Minnesota Congressman Dean Phillips made his campaign for the presidency official Friday morning in an interview with CBS News after filing to get his name on the ballot in New Hampshire’s primary.
“I have to,” the 54-year-old Phillips said. “I will not sit still, I will not be quiet in the face of numbers that are so clearly saying we’re going to be facing an emergency next November.”
Rumors of a possible Phillps campaign have been swirling for weeks, but the Minnesota Democrat, whose district encompasses several Minneapolis suburbs, seemed poised to back out earlier this month when he missed the deadline to appear on the ballot in Nevada’s primaries. The hints and whispers finally came to a head this week when Phillips campaign vehicles began appearing in Ohio and at the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s office.
Phillips has stayed relatively cryptic on campaign issues. The congressman’s public statements leading up to his campaign announcement have been critical of the fact that incumbent Joe Biden remains the far-and-away leader in the Democratic race, but Phillips has stopped short of criticizing any of Biden’s policy stances directly. Rather, he has called repeatedly for the sitting president to “pass the torch” to other Democrats seeking the party’s nomination.
When stepping down from his House role as co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee early in October, Philips said in a statement that his “convictions relative to the 2024 presidential race are incongruent with the majority of my caucus.”
He has pushed throughout the year for Democrats to “jump in” to the presidential race, particularly after the release of polling numbers showing Biden as unpopular among Democratic voters.
Phillips, a political moderate, heir to the Phillips Distilling Company and one of the wealthiest members of Congress, first entered politics in 2018 by wrestling Minnesota’s Third Congressional District away from Republican Eric Paulsen. That win made him the first Democrat to represent the deep-red district in 60 years, part of a suburban blue wave which saw Minnesota’s Democratic Farmer Labor party pick up big wins in once-strong Republican suburbs while losing ground in its industrial power bases in the state’s northern reaches.
Phillips’ bid for the presidency has not been popular with prominent Democrats back home. Democratic governor Tim Walz dismissed press questions about Phillips Thursday, saying that the party was “going to have our nominee in President Biden, and that will get done and we'll move on.”
Democratic Farmer Labor party chair Ken Martin also expressed dismay about Phillips’ campaign to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, calling it “hopeless.”
Phillips is also facing a primary challenge back home from Ron Harris, a onetime City of Minneapolis employee who is seeking to become the Third District's first representative of color.
Phillips’ decision to file in New Hampshire but skip Nevada, along with a continued silence on whether he will file in South Carolina by that state’s Nov. 10 deadline, adds yet another quixotic angle to his campaign. New Hampshire’s upcoming primary will not be recognized by the Democratic National Committee, thanks to an ongoing spat between the state and the national party over its longtime status as an early campaign stop.
Democrats, Biden included, have pushed for states with greater Black and Latino populations to be moved to the top of the primary calendar, culminating in a plan to make South Carolina’s primary the party’s first. Republican New Hampshire election officials, however, have refused to adjust the state’s election plans. As a result, the Democratic National Committee has not placed the primary on its official calendar, and Biden’s campaign announced this week that the president won’t be on the state’s primary ballot.
Phillips will instead be competing primarily against fellow long-shot candidate Marianne Williamson, an author, spiritual adviser and perennial candidate from California. Twelve other Democrats have also filed to appear on the ballot, and Biden may still make a showing in write-in votes.
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