Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), who is running against President Joe Biden in the Democratic presidential primary, compared the president’s absence from New Hampshire ahead of the state’s primary to Bigfoot in a TV ad released last week.
“I’m something of an expert on elusive creatures,” a man dressed as Sasquatch said in the spot. “So I challenged myself to find President Biden in New Hampshire during this primary season. I thought I was good at hiding.”
The ad, which Phillips recycled from his 2018 congressional campaign to draw attention to his missing challenger, was a similar jab to Biden, who has not campaigned in New Hampshire ahead of its Tuesday primary.
Biden will not appear on the ballot after the Democratic National Committee decided to move its first-in-the-nation primary to South Carolina, sparking an intraparty fight with the DNC and the Granite State.
However, Phillips is ignoring the DNC and choosing to campaign in the Granite State anyway. While Biden is not appearing in the flesh, Democratic leaders are conducting a write-in campaign encouraging people to cast their votes for Biden on Tuesday. Democratic state Rep. Angela Brennan, a staunch supporter of the write-in campaign, told the Associated Press she was dismayed at the DNC’s decision but said the election is “a choice between democracy and dictatorship.”
“There’s definitely some frustration and disappointment for how this played out, but I trust that Granite Staters are able to look at the bigger picture and realize the stakes of this election,” she said.
While Phillips has been campaigning in New Hampshire, he remains in a distant second at 9.8% to Biden, who is polling at 58%, according to a RealClearPolitics average of New Hampshire polls.
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Phillips, whom former state House Speaker Steve Shurtleff endorsed, could appeal to Democrats who are critical of Biden or worried about a rematch between the president and his predecessor, Republican Donald Trump. Shurtleff previously told the Washington Examiner that the write-in could backfire on Biden, a sentiment Phillips echoes in his ad.
“Never did find Joe Biden, now some big money super PAC is telling us to vote for him,” the Bigfoot character said. “Why write him in when he has written us off?”