Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dean Phillips (MN) on Sunday called on voters to “wake up” after President Joe Biden handily won the South Carolina primary, arguing former President Donald Trump poses a serious threat in the November election.
Despite his efforts to counter Biden as a younger and more apt candidate to take on Trump, the likely Republican front-runner, Phillips finished in third place behind author Marianne Williamson in South Carolina‘s Democratic primary on Saturday, gaining less than 2% of the vote.
“Who got whooped? I did,” Phillips said on MSNBC’s The Weekend, but contended that should be seen as a warning sign to voters, pointing to a slew of competitive national polls and swing state polls that show Trump is leading in key battlegrounds that could decide the race for President in November.
“I respect Joe Biden. He should have passed the torch,” Phillips added. “This was not a mission for me. But someone had to do this,” he said, referring to a need for the Democratic party to be “moving forward.”
The Phillips campaign has accused Biden and his allies of engaging in “suppression tactics” to keep the Minnesota congressman off the ballot in several states, including the April 2 primary in Wisconsin.
The Minnesota congressman called out the “irresponsible” rhetoric of fellow party members who shunned his efforts to remain on the ballot in Wisconsin, in an interview with WISN 12 News’s ‘Upfront’ vowing to remain in the race until at least the state’s April primary election.
But Phillips was handed a small victory on Friday after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the Minnesota congressman could be on the Democratic presidential primary ballot after initially being excluded by the Wisconsin Presidential Preference Selection Committee. Ahead of that decision, Gov. Tony Evers (D) had called Phillips’ efforts “ridiculous.”
“I gotta tell you that for a Democratic governor to tell Americans, especially the folks in Wisconsin, that putting someone on the ballot is ‘ridiculous?’ I don’t know what else to say — there are sometimes when I’m at a loss for words — I think my party is acting in a very irresponsible and dangerous manner,” Phillips told the local ABC News affiliate in a pre-recorded interview.
Evers, who is backing Biden’s reelection bid, also called Phillips’s legal challenge to remain on the ballot “a distraction” last week.
“I think the party can figure it out. I can’t believe that this is going forward. That seems ridiculous to me,” Evers told reporters in Wisconsin, just days before the state Supreme Court ruled to keep Phillips on the ballot.
The court wrote that the local committee that determines which candidates appear on the party’s ballot “is granted discretion in determining whether a particular candidacy meets that standard” of being “generally advocated or recognized in the national news media.”
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The majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed with Phillips’s assertion that he met the media standard and should be allowed on the ballot.
Phillips has vowed to stay in the race until at least after Wisconsin’s April 2 primary election.