Rep. Dean Phillips, the Democrat from Minnesota who challenged President Joe Biden in the party’s 2024 primary, ended his longshot attempt to win the nomination and endorsed Biden on Wednesday.
Phillips, 55, jumped into the race last October, arguing that 81-year-old Biden is a vulnerable incumbent candidate because of his age and saying it’s time for the party’s leader to “pass the torch.” Following dismal performances in Democratic primaries across the country, including a third-place finish behind Biden and “uncommitted” in his home state on Super Tuesday, Phillips announced he would suspend his campaign and get behind the president.
“I’m going to suspend my campaign and I will be, right now, endorsing President Biden because the choices are so clear,” Phillips said during an interview on a Minnesota radio show, according to NBC News.
In the Minnesota Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday, Biden won 70% of the vote, while “uncommitted” came in second place with nearly 20%, and Phillips finished in third with just 7.8%.
“Congratulations to Joe Biden, Uncommitted, Marianne Williamson, and Nikki Haley for demonstrating more appeal to Democratic Party loyalists than me,” Phillips posted on Tuesday night.
When he launched his campaign, the Democratic congressman warned about his party’s impending “emergency” in November if Biden remained the Democratic nominee.
“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,” Phillips told CBS News. He later added in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “if this election was held today, President Biden would lose, and it is an existential threat to the future of the United States of America.”
When he announced his presidential campaign, Phillips admitted that the middle class was struggling under Biden’s watch.
“We have to make life more affordable for the middle class, which is the issue that voters care about most. We need to bring down the cost of living and make life affordable again,” he said. “As part of making life more affordable, we have to celebrate success. America should be the most prosperous country in the world, and we need to be both pro-business and pro-worker to get there.”
In a post on X on Wednesday, Phillips praised Biden’s “empathy and kindness” — sharing a photo of the then-vice president sitting next to Phillips’ two young daughters — and said that Democrats must “resist Donald Trump again.”
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“I ran for Congress in 2018 to resist Donald Trump, I was trapped in the Capitol in 2021 because of Donald Trump, and I ran for President in 2024 to resist Donald Trump again – because Americans were demanding an alternative, and democracy demands options,” the congressman wrote. “But it is clear that alternative is not me. And it is clear that Joe Biden is OUR candidate and OUR opportunity to demonstrate what type of country America is and intends to be.”
In 2011, I hosted then VP Biden at my home. Most notable was his empathy and kindness to my daughters and the catering staff, with whom he sat and had ice cream (surprise-surprise). His decency and wisdom were rarities in politics then, and even more so today.
Over a decade… pic.twitter.com/e3mGNU7u2C
— Dean Phillips (@deanbphillips) March 6, 2024