Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips Officially Challenging Biden For President

(KNSI) – Minnesota Democratic Representative Dean Phillips is running for president.

He announced his primary challenge to President Joe Biden at an event Friday morning in New Hampshire. He called his campaign a long shot.

Phillips posted a message on X/Twitter that stated his campaign would be about four main things: the economy, safety, generational change with policies that invest in the future, and listening to each other to get back to a less divisive political environment.

He says if Biden is the Democratic nominee, the party faces a risk of Donald Trump being back in the White House.

The 54-year-old may benefit from New Hampshire Democrats angry at Biden for diluting their state’s influence on the 2024 Democratic primary calendar, a change that state party chairman Ray Buckley has warned could create a potential embarrassment by an insurgent candidate, serious or not.

New Hampshire primary challenges have a history of wounding incumbent presidents.

In 1968, another Minnesotan, Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy, built his campaign around opposing the Vietnam War and finished second in New Hampshire’s primary, helping push President Lyndon Johnson into forgoing a second term. Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy’s challenge of President Jimmy Carter and Pat Buchanan’s run against President George H.W. Bush both failed, but Carter and Bush ultimately lost their reelection bids.

There are no primary debates scheduled, according to the DNC. The only other Democrat running in the 2024 primary is self-help author Marianne Williamson.

Phillips has already missed the deadline to enter Nevada’s primary and is unknown nationally. He is one of the wealthiest members of Congress and heir to his stepfather’s Phillips Distilling Company empire, which holds major vodka and schnapps brands. His grandmother was the late Pauline Phillips, better known as the advice columnist “Dear Abby.”

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