Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) dropped his long-shot bid for the 2024 Democratic nomination on Wednesday, one day after an underwhelming finish in a slate of Super Tuesday states.
Phillips’s candidacy was long framed as a referendum on Biden, who has faced calls to make way for a new generation of leaders. Yet the congressman focused squarely on his resistance to former President Donald Trump in ending his campaign. He endorsed Biden in the process.
“I ran for Congress in 2018 to resist Donald Trump, I was trapped in the [U.S.] 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,” Phillips wrote in a statement.
“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,” he added. “To all who supported my effort, thank you. But today, in light of the stark reality we face, I ask you join me in mobilizing, energizing, and doing everything you can to help keep a man of decency and integrity in the White House. That’s Joe Biden.”
Phillips, 55, had been candid about the need to reconsider his Democratic primary campaign challenging Biden after Super Tuesday, struggling to find a political foothold as he criticized Biden over his age even as he supported many of his policies.
Over the course of Phillips’s four-month campaign, he was routinely outperformed by author Marianne Williamson, who had suspended her own bid before relaunching it last week, as well as protest votes against Biden.
On Super Tuesday, Phillips even underperformed in his home state of Minnesota, with the Associated Press calling the race 24 minutes after the polls closed at 9 p.m ET. It found Biden at 70.7% support compared to Phillips’s 17.6%. Another 9.2% marked themselves as “uncommitted” to demonstrate their opposition to Biden’s approach to the Israel-Hamas war.
“Congratulations to Joe Biden, Uncommitted, Marianne Williamson, and Nikki Haley for demonstrating more appeal to Democratic Party loyalists than me,” he wrote on Tuesday.
Despite its length, Phillips’s campaign was not without personal consequence. The third-term congressman resigned from House Democratic leadership because of his bid and announced he would not be recontesting Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District, which covers the Twin Cities’s western suburbs, in November.
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It also came at a personal financial cost, funded mostly by himself as the millionaire former co-owner of Talenti gelato, among other businesses, including his family’s Phillips Distilling Company.
Phillips additionally courted controversy, originally hiring Republican Steve Schmidt and receiving donations from the likes of Harlan Crow. He, too, was scrutinized for remarks he made regarding Vice President Kamala Harris, describing her as “not well prepared” and saying she “doesn’t have the right disposition and the right competencies to execute that office.” He later apologized.
