Former Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips said in an op-ed that he only ran for president in 2024 against then-President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary because no other big power players would.
The former Minnesota Democratic congressman was widely shunned for running against Biden and discredited for his accusations that Biden wasn’t capable of being president again. Biden later dropped his bid for president in July 2024.
Phillips suggested that Biden’s recent prostate cancer diagnosis was hidden from the public for years and that his cancer was revealed the week of journalist Jake Tapper’s book, based on Biden’s mental acuity, on purpose.
He said he called Govs. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) and JB Pritzker (D-IL) to urge them to run, but they would not return his calls. He then “implored” Democrats such as former Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) to run, but they did not do so.
“By the fall of 2023, I realized not only that Biden was in serious decline, but that the polling was clearly showing he couldn’t win. My party was sleepwalking into a second Trump term. So, with no one else willing to step forward—I entered the race,” he said.
Phillips said he knew he was a “long shot” to win but wanted to force a debate so voters could “see up close what I had seen and what the White House was trying to hide from them, and before it was too late.”
He failed to do so, accusing several state Democratic Parties of trying “to keep anyone not named ‘Biden’ from being on the ballot, forcing us to file several lawsuits.” Phillips would capture just around 3% of the popular vote and a mere four delegates in the primary.
Going forward, Phillips says the party needs to “come clean.”
“No more evasions,” he said. “No more insistence that he was sharp when you met him. The whole truth will come out, and they would be wise to get ahead of it. If a relatively little-known congressman like me knew that Biden was incapable of leading the country in a second term, what does that say about the complicity of the real party bosses whose names we all know?”
“American voters of all political perspectives are tired of being ignored, talked down to, lied to, canceled, and expected to choose between competing versions of increasingly similar political dysfunction. For Democrats, this is an existential moment. It’s time to acknowledge their misdeeds and move on,” he continued.
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Phillips declined to run for reelection to his House seat, exiting the chamber earlier this year.
In another op-ed published Thursday, this one in the Wall Street Journal, he said he appreciated the outlet calling for him to be apologized to, but “I’m not the one who’s owed an apology,” he said, “every American voter is.”