Over the past week, GOP Congressman Tom Emmer (MN-06) made headlines in his attempt to become House Speaker, a campaign which ultimately failed.
Then a few days later, Dem Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-05) grabbed the spotlight for all the wrong reasons when she was one of 10 House members to vote against a resolution supporting Israel.
Then on Friday, yet another House rep from Minnesota made quite a splash.
Dean Phillips is running for president. If that was supposed to be a secret, the Minnesota Democratic congressman hasn't done the best job keeping it.
A "Dean Phillips for President" van was prominently parked in Concord on Thursday afternoon outside the building where Phillips will have to file for the New Hampshire presidential primary by a Friday deadline.
The vehicle appeared to be the same vintage 1960s "Government Repair Truck" that Phillips has driven around his congressional district for years.
A calendar in the New Hampshire Secretary of State's Office reviewed by the Star Tribune Thursday lists Phillips as set to file for the presidential primary Friday morning.
Phillips posted a statement on Twitter "X" Friday morning.
I am running for President as a Democrat in 2024.
My campaign will be about four main things.
First and foremost, it will be about the economy. We have to make life more affordable for the middle class, which is the issue that voters care about most. We need to bring down the cost of living and make life affordable again.
As part of making life more affordable, we have to celebrate success. America should be the most prosperous country in the world, and we need to be both pro-business and pro-worker to get there.
Second, it will be about safety. If people don’t feel safe in their communities, not much else matters. We have a drug crisis and a mental health crisis in this country; it’s taking a horrible toll on individual as well as their communities. We have to address it.
Third, my campaign will be about the generational change the country wants and policies that invest in our future, our young people.
And finally, it will be about listening to each other to get back to a less divisive political environment. There’s government reform that will help with this too—we need term limits, campaign finance reform, and things like bipartisan cabinets.
I promised my daughters when Trump won in 2016 that I’d stand up and do something about it, so I ran for Congress and am now on my third term.
I didn’t set out to enter this race. But it looks like on our current course, the Democrats will lose and Trump will be our President again. President Biden is a good man and someone I tremendously respect. I understand why other Democrats don’t want to run against him, and why we are here. This is a last-minute campaign, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and courage is an important value to me.
If President Biden is the Democratic nominee, we face an unacceptable risk of Trump being back in the White House. I know this campaign is a long shot, but that is why I think it is important and worth doing.
As I’ve been listening to voters the past few weeks, I’ve been really heartened by the support, and believe we can win both this primary and general election.
People know in their hearts that it’s time for a change. We can do this together. Everyone's Invited!
I continue to maintain that President Biden will not make it to 2024 simply because it's beyond obvious that he is neither physically nor mentally up for a campaign grind. If/when Biden steps aside, will Phillips have gained enough traction to be a suitable replacement? Time will tell.
One area where Phillips will have an undeniable advantage is with the Jewish population, specifically those who vote Democrat. A good number of those voters are becoming disaffected with the Dems' anti-Semitism problem, so much so that they're considering taking their votes elsewhere. Phillips, who himself is a member of the Jewish faith, has been unafraid from the beginning to call out members of his own party who expressed anti-Jewish sentiments. Indeed, this might not even be a salient issue were it not for the raging war in Israel, but here we are.
A majority of voters have expressed their dismay at a potential Biden-Trump rematch, but neither Democrats nor Republicans seems to be willing to move off their guy. However, both parties now have viable alternatives. It's definitely not too late.
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