Dean Phillips Announces Not Running for Re-Election in Congress To Focus on Presidential Candidacy

Democratic Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips officially announced that he would not seek re-election to Congress as he would focus on challenging President Joe Biden for his party's nomination in the 2024 race.

The lawmaker said it is time to pass the torch after working for three terms. He echoed the argument for generational change he called for in his primary bid against the president.

Dean Phillips Will Not Run for Re-Election in Congress

Dean Phillips Announces Not Running for Re-Election in Congress To Focus on Presidential Candidacy

(Photo : Gaelen Morse/Getty Images)
Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips announced that he would not be running for re-election in Congress as he seeks to focus on challenging Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination for the 2024 race.

Last month, Phillips officially launched his campaign for the Democratic nomination in New Hampshire. He said he was compelled to challenge Biden over his concerns that the president would lose a general election rematch against former United States President Donald Trump. He argued that this would be because of the sitting president's age and low approval ratings.

However, he has faced significant intraparty opposition to his candidacy as lawmakers seek to unify around Biden. They also want to fend off spoiler independent candidates and lay out the administration's accomplishments to American voters, as per CNN.

Phillips instead started to take shots at the president over policy and criticized his administration's handling of the Hamas hostages situation. He noted that it was unacceptable that American citizens remain held by the militant group and have not yet been set free through diplomacy or special forces extraction.

The Minnesota Democrat is an heir to a distilling business and is the former chairman of Talenti Gelato. He has vowed to invest as much of his multi-million-dollar fortune as possible to win the Democratic nomination.

The lawmaker also supports a new super PAC, Pass the Torch, which airs ads in New Hampshire and Washington, D.C. It highlights polls that show Biden lagging behind Trump in key swing states.

Phillips successfully flipped Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District in 2018. The district encompasses many suburbs in the western half of the Twin Cities metro area. He was also the first Democrat to win there since 1958 and continued to win re-election twice, according to the Washington Post.

Running Against Joe Biden

Congressional candidates in the state have until June 4 to file paperwork to appear on the ballot. But Phillips said he intends to run for president well beyond that. The lawmaker said that he believes that one of the country's problems right now is the unwillingness of people in positions of power to pass the torch.

Phillips told his colleagues in Congress that it was an honor to serve with them, particularly during some of the darkest days in the history of the country. Before his announcement, there were early signs that the Minnesota representative was planning to run for Congress.

However, he stepped down from his role as co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Caucus at the start of October. He said that his opinions of the 2024 race were "incongruent with the majority of [his] caucus."

Phillips has been on the record criticizing the older members of Congress and calling for term limits. This was after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell froze during a news conference last summer. Additionally, the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein was being hospitalized after she fell in her home, according to Yahoo News.