Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) — who launched a long-shot presidential primary bid against President Biden last month — announced Friday he wouldn’t run for reelection to the House in 2024.
“It’s time to pass the torch, it’s time for change, and our best days are yet to come!” Phillips wrote in an X post on Friday that linked to a Star Tribune story where he first announced his decision. Phillips told the Minnesota news organization it would be “irresponsible to continue to string both my constituents along and the other candidates who both have entered the race and who might be interested in entering the race.”
In 2018, Phillips flipped Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District, which encompasses many of the suburbs in the western half of the Twin Cities metro area. He went on to win reelection to two more terms.
In late October, the 54-year-old Phillips announced he would challenge Biden — who turned 81 earlier this week — for the Democratic presidential nomination, saying the president should “pass the torch” to a new generation. Phillips has built out a campaign team that included top strategists who worked on the presidential campaigns of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Andrew Yang (D).
His in-person campaigning in New Hampshire got off to a rocky start. But he is getting help from a new super PAC that recently launched ads in that state and the Washington area, comparing Biden’s campaign to a burning dynamite fuse overlaid on news headlines about his struggles and recent polling results showing him trailing former president Donald Trump. According to one person familiar with the ads who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private strategy, more than $1 million was spent on the initial ads.
Phillips’s challenge to the head of his party has confounded some colleagues, and caused rifts with fellow Democrats. Before launching his campaign, he stepped down from his House leadership role as the co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, which coordinates messaging among the House Democrats.
When he resigned from that job, Phillips said his “convictions relative to the 2024 presidential race are incongruent with the majority of [his] caucus.”
