Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips ends Democratic primary challenge and endorses President Joe Biden

Phillips was the only elected Democrat to challenge Biden for the presidency. Phillips’ failure to gain traction is further proof that Democratic voters are behind the 81-year-old Biden even if many have misgivings about his age or his reelection prospects.

The president has long cast himself as uniquely qualified to beat Republican Donald Trump again after his 2020 win, and his reelection campaign largely ignored Phillips except to point out that the congressman voted with the administration nearly 100% of the time in Congress.

Phillips often argued Biden was too old to serve a second term. But in a social media post Wednesday, Phillips noted that Biden had once visited his home while serving as vice president and that his “decency and wisdom were rarities in politics then, and even more so today.”

“We only have two of them,” Phillips told WCCO. “And it’s going to be Donald Trump or Joe Biden. And while indeed I think the president is at a stage in life where his capacities are diminished, he is still a man of competency and decency and integrity. And the alternative, Donald Trump is a very dangerous, dangerous man.”

Phillips’ endorsement of Biden appears to foreclose running as a third-party challenger on a potential No Labels ticket.

A centerpiece of Phillips’ campaign to upset Biden was in New Hampshire, where he campaigned hard, hoping to capitalize on state Democrats’ frustration over a new plan by the Democratic National Committee, championed by Biden, reordering the party’s 2024 presidential primary calendar by leading off with South Carolina on Feb. 3.

But instead of pulling off a New Hampshire surprise, Phillips finished a distant second in the state’s unsanctioned primary, behind a write-in campaign in which Democrats voted for Biden despite his name not appearing on the ballot.

After that defeat, Phillips pressed on to South Carolina and the primary’s formal start. But the DNC didn’t schedule any primary debates, and some states’ Democratic parties, including North Carolina and Florida, are not even planning to hold primaries — making it even more difficult to challenge the sitting president. Phillips lost South Carolina and every other state in which he competed.

Before Minnesota’s primary on Super Tuesday, hardly any of nearly two dozen Democratic voters interviewed in Phillips’ congressional district mentioned his presidential campaign. James Calderaro of Hopkins knew Phillips was a candidate but dismissed him as “a distraction.” Calderaro and others said they were backing Biden for the best chance of stopping Trump in November.

Phillips has already announced he’s not seeking reelection in his suburban Minneapolis congressional district. He is heir to his stepfather’s Phillips Distilling Co. empire and served as that company’s president, but he also ran the gelato maker Talenti. His grandmother was Pauline Phillips, better known as the advice columnist Dear Abby.

Driving a gelato truck helped Phillips win his first House campaign in 2018, when he unseated five-term Republican Erik Paulsen. While Phillips’ district in mostly affluent greater Minneapolis has become more Democratic-leaning, he stressed that he is a moderate focused on his suburban constituents.

While running for president, however, Phillips moved further to the left, endorsing fully government-funded health care through “Medicare for All.”