Who is Dean Phillips, the possible Democratic challenger to Joe Biden?

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) may soon take the next step into the national spotlight after it was reported he will launch his Democratic primary challenge to President Joe Biden on Friday.

Phillips is expected to file for the New Hampshire primary on Friday, kicking off his 2024 campaign. While it is unlikely to succeed in a Democratic nomination, his bid for the White House could do some irreparable damage to Biden.

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Here’s what to know about Phillips and how his 2024 campaign could affect Biden and Democrats.

Who is Dean Phillips?

Phillips, 54, is a third-term congressman from Minnesota’s Minneapolis suburbs. He was elected in 2019 to serve the state’s deep red 3rd Congressional District, becoming the first Democrat to win the seat since 1958.

He is the multimillionaire businessman behind Talenti Gelato. With a net worth of $77 million in 2018, Phillips is considered to be one of the wealthiest members of Congress — an asset for anyone hoping to run a presidential campaign.

Phillips is considered to be a centrist Democrat. He served on House Democratic leadership until Oct. 1, when he announced he would step down from his role as co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee.

What led up to a possible run for president

Phillips gave many indications that he may soon be a presidential candidate. In leaving his leadership position at the beginning of the month, Phillips cited his reason as no longer being aligned with the House Democratic Caucus on presidential politics.

“My convictions relative to the 2024 presidential race are incongruent with the majority of my caucus, and I felt it appropriate to step aside from elected leadership,” he said at the time.

Despite voting in support of Biden’s position 100% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight, Phillips has been agitating against the president for months. In August, he called on Democrats to put a candidate up to run against the president in 2024 following the appointment of a special counsel in the Hunter Biden investigations. However, he remains in the minority in calling for a Biden alternative.

Phillips has vocally opposed Biden’s reelection decision, calling him out for “not passing the torch” and raising concerns about the president’s age. At 80, he is the oldest president in U.S. history and would be 86 at the end of a second term.

What is Biden’s reaction to Phillips’s expected entry?

While declining to comment on Phillips’s possible entry into the Democratic primary, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday that the administration does “appreciate the congressman’s almost 100% support of this president.”

How could a Phillips campaign affect Biden?

Some Democrats have dismissed Phillips’s primary challenge as “delusional,” worried that the Minnesota Democrat’s efforts could pull people away from Biden, who has polled as the most successful challenger to former President Donald Trump if he becomes the GOP nominee.

Other critics of Phillips say that he doesn’t have the resources or the time to dedicate to the 2024 primary that is already seeing deadlines pass by.

“He’s self-immolating,” Larry Jacobs, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, told the Washington Examiner.

“He has no campaign organization and lacks the time [and money] to stand one up. Filing deadlines to get on the state ballots are approaching or past. He lacks the national following that would give this any chance. And he’s squandering his standing in Congress and political circles.”

University of New Hampshire political science professor Dante Scala told the Washington Examiner, “You can’t beat an incumbent president with a member of the House of Representatives.”

“If Phillips got in today, he would have three months until the primary — just building name ID is a formidable task,” Scala added.

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Phillips has already missed the deadline to appear in Nevada’s primary. Instead, he will likely focus on the New Hampshire primary, which has become a contentious issue due to Democratic National Committee rules. The DNC replaced New Hampshire, historically the first-in-the-nation primary state for both parties, with South Carolina as the first primary in 2024. The committee made a subsequent decision that if any Democrat participates in the New Hampshire primary, they may not receive any delegates from the nominating convention.

For this reason, Biden’s campaign announced on Tuesday that Biden would not be on the New Hampshire primary ballot for the 2024 election, drawing criticism from New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan.