Biden primary challenger Dean Phillips won’t run for re-election to Congress

Rep. Dean Phillips, a long-shot candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, announced Friday that he will not seek election to a fourth term representing Minnesota’s 3rd District in the House.

A one-time vice chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, Phillips described a nation “facing a crisis of cooperation, common sense, and truth” in a statement released by his office.

“Civility matters, respect matters, listening matters, and effective governance matters,” he said. “No party has a monopoly on solutions, and we must stop fighting one another and begin fighting for one another — before it is too late.”

Phillips is taking on a herculean task in challenging President Joe Biden in a primary. While polls show that many Democrats aren’t satisfied with Biden as their nominee, there’s scant evidence to suggest that Phillips or anyone else has a legitimate shot at beating him — or that most voters have ever heard of Phillips.

An NBC News survey released earlier this month showed Biden taking 77% of Democratic primary voters nationally. Marianne Williamson was the choice of 12%, and Phillips had just 4%. He’s also up against history: He would be the first president elected directly from the House since James Garfield in 1880.

His presence in the race has been a nuisance to the White House — more because of the message it sends about concerns with Biden than for any fear that he poses a threat to the president’s chances in the primary. Part of the challenge for Phillips in distinguishing himself as a candidate is his affinity for voting with Biden. FiveThirtyEight.com found that he sided with the president’s position 100% of the time in the last Congress.

“Congressman Phillips has voted for nearly 100% of President Biden’s policies, and the President will miss his support for the Biden-Harris legislative agenda,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement responding to Phillips’ announcement.

Already, Phillips, who is Jewish, has run into trouble explaining his position on the Israel-Hamas war in New Hampshire, which is expected to be the first state to hold a Democratic primary next year. He has described himself as caring “deeply about both sides” — Israelis and Palestinians — which has upset some voters.

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“[T]he fact that people are taking only one side or the other right now is exactly the problem,” he said recently.

Phillips was first elected to the House in 2018, defeating Republican Erik Paulsen as part of a voter backlash against then-President Donald Trump. He was twice re-elected handily, but not overwhelmingly, with more than 55% of the vote in 2020 and nearly 60% in 2022.

Phillips could still change his mind — the deadline to register to run for his Minnesota seat isn’t until the middle of next year, long after the critical primary voting day of Super Tuesday.

Because of those victories, and redistricting following the 2020 census that made the district marginally better for Democrats, his seat has been considered fairly safe for his party.