Junior leader turned Biden foe: How Dean Phillips fell from Democratic grace

As President Joe Biden’s party frets openly over his reelection bid, House Democrats are growing more furious with one of their own — Dean Phillips — over his long-shot primary challenge to the president.

Even Democrats who insist their Minnesota colleague won't hurt Biden in the end are aghast that Phillips would take the risk by running. It doesn’t help that he has centered his campaign on critiquing Biden’s age amid lackluster recent polls that show voters share the same concern about the 80-year-old president.

“It’s threatening the success of the Democratic ticket from top to bottom,” said Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.), who had personally urged Phillips not to run.

Interviews with more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers and senior aides in recent weeks, reveal that Phillips' candidacy is deeply aggravating his party. As former President Donald Trump surges toward the GOP nomination, Democrats are keenly aware of how quickly a nuisance candidacy like Phillips’ can turn into a huge threat.

Party elders and Biden allies like Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) who pushed to elevate more diverse primary states over white-dominated New Hampshire, are particularly incensed that Phillips has tried to capitalize on their move by exploiting the president's absence from the ballot in that state. Clyburn, the veteran Black leader, told POLITICO that Phillips’ approach is “very, very disrespectful.”

He rattled off examples of primary bids that soured voters on the party's presidential candidates, such as the New Hampshire primary near-upset that derailed Lyndon Johnson in 1968 and fellow Democrats' criticism of Michael Dukakis' record on crime that resurfaced in the 1988 general election.

“These things, historically, they've never been good for the sitting president,” Clyburn said. “When we ought to be coalescing, we have these divisions.”

The South Carolinian party elder hasn’t directly spoken to Phillips about his bid. But other senior Democrats have, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

In a late August phone call, Jeffries informed his friend Phillips that the prospective primary run was starting to attract attention in the party — leaving Phillips out of step with colleagues who'd elected him to the party’s messaging arm, according to two people familiar with the exchange. (Phillips’ campaign did not provide a comment.)

By early fall, Phillips had lost the goodwill of many more irked Democrats. He stepped down from his leadership role a few weeks before launching his campaign. Now, his fall from grace inside the party is bedeviling colleagues who once respected and even rewarded his bluntness about internal problems.

The plainspoken Minnesotan got to Congress in 2018’s blue wave as a wealthy businessperson of Talenti Gelato and Belvedere Vodka fame, and his ability to self-fund meant he could afford — literally — to speak hard truths about his party. Phillips occasionally took on its ascendant progressive wing but largely picked less ideological battles, raising questions over then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s age and his colleagues’ unsavory ties to corporate PACs.

As the rare Democrat unencumbered by fundraising demands or vulnerable status back home, he also took riskier stands like pressing for House members to get pay raises and helping to protect anti-Trump Republicans, all with a “Minnesota nice” twist. When most moderates would lash out at a party policy they opposed, Phillips would typically lead with disappointment and determination to resolve it.

Taking the more dangerous tack of criticizing Biden over his age, however, has made Phillips new enemies for the first time. Colleagues who had welcomed his Ted Lasso-ish earnestness lately fear he's daring to throw the 2024 election to Trump and the GOP.

Kuster, who met with Phillips before his official launch and urged him against it, told him she’s seen what “serious candidates” look like during her 50 years involved in her home state's primary. His campaign, she said, was "ill conceived."

She has her own guesses as to why Phillips is running: "There’s an expression we use in the U.S. Capitol: He doesn’t lack for self-esteem.”

What especially dumbfounds Democrats like Kuster is how little policy daylight there is between Phillips and Biden. The one major issue where Phillips diverges from Biden is Israel, which the Jewish American lawmaker is more hawkish than the president in defending. But now, his fledgling New Hampshire bid is causing Phillips to miss key votes on Israel policy.

Besides his absence from last week's House vote on military aid to Israel, Phillips also missed a procedural vote on whether to allow a GOP push to censure fellow Midwesterner Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). His and other Democratic absences all but ensured Tlaib's punishment for divisive remarks on the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, given that the party needed just three more votes to block the censure.

Fellow lawmakers took notice that Phillips — who has reached out to Tlaib as a “Palestinian sister” and criticized the Democratic Party’s lack of inclusivity — skipped the vote.

Even House Democrats who are personally close to Phillips say they can’t fully grasp his motivations. Many insist that Phillips has a genuine conviction that what he’s doing will help defeat Trump and it's not about racking up headlines; yet when pressed, they’re not able to defend his intentions. None would speak on the record.

Privately, a small number of congressional Democrats agreed that they, too, are worried about Biden’s weaknesses against Trump. Still, they see Phillips as the wrong alternative. (“We need a revolution,” conceded one House Democrat, before adding that Phillips "ain’t the guy.”)

Some Democrats see a slim chance that Biden could change his mind about reelection, particularly after this weekend’s gruesome set of polling that showed Trump leading in battleground states. One Democrat close to Phillips said that is essentially the reason the Minnesotan is taking the risk: “He thinks in the end, that if he doesn’t do this, then Trump will win and Biden loses.

“That’s the thing, does he make it worse? Or does he actually get someone else to jump in, or actually get the president to make a different decision? ... There are some who still hope he does,” added this Democrat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

While some are shocked by Phillips' professional self-immolation, others say he was already bearish on a long future in a dysfunctional Congress. His four years in Washington have included two presidential impeachments, the longest-ever government shutdown, a Capitol insurrection and a historic speaker ousting.

If Phillips does decide to seek reelection in 2024, he’d have to survive a primary back home — likely without financial support from the party establishment — against a field of challengers that includes a Democratic National Committee member.

Phillips’ more immediate problem, though, is making it through a grueling few months of presidential primaries. He’s made clear that New Hampshire is his focus, frustrating Democrats like Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) whose diverse home state was, like South Carolina, elevated to have more political power this cycle.

“He messed up by not taking Nevada seriously,” said Horsford, who also chairs the Congressional Black Caucus. Missing the state’s filing deadline, Horsford added, was a “major mistake" by Phillips.

Asked about the danger his fellow House Democrat might pose to Biden, though, Horsford laughed dismissively.

“There’s no risk to the president,” Horsford said. “This is more about making sure that voters in states like Nevada and South Carolina — that reflect the diversity of our party and are the base of any candidates’ ability to win — are heard.”