(Source: MIRS.news, Published 01/10/2024) Long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips said that after the New Hampshire primary wraps up Jan. 23, his next stop is Michigan, the site of the Feb. 27 presidential primary . . . and it might be shortly after the polls close.
“You might be seeing me the next morning,” he told the City Pulse. The news comes as The Detroit News and WDIV reported Tuesday evening that only 17% of voters say that President Joe Biden deserves to be reelected and 77 percent said they wanted to see someone else elected.
The poll also shows Biden down 8 points to Republican presidential candidate Donald TRUMP and 10 points down to Republican Nikki Haley.
Once Phillips is in Michigan, the 54-year-old former head of his family’s distilling business (think Belvedere Vodka) said he’ll be spending "a better part of the next month” in the Great Lakes State.
“It’s probably the second-most important state in my strategy,” Phillips said.
The most important is the state he’s in now – New Hampshire. If he gets blown out there, the name “Dean Phillips” will probably evaporate into the ether of American politics.
But it might not. President Joe Biden's Democratic Party mixed up its nomination selection process and put South Carolina ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire, traditionally the sites of the first two selection contests.
New Hampshire is having its primary first anyway and Joe Biden’s name isn’t on the ballot. The President didn’t want to give credibility to the New Hampshire contest. Voters will need to write in Biden’s name in order for it to count.
Phillips is on TV in the Granite State letting everyone know about it.
“Joe Biden has ordered New Hampshire to step aside. That’s not the New Hampshire way,” the voice over on Phillips’ ad says.
There’s no delegates at play in this primary. It’s a “beauty contest” through-and-through. But Phillips’ advisors are secretly hoping for 42% at the polls, according to POLITICO. What if that happens? Could he be the loser, yet come out a winner?
“New Hampshire is going to be the spark,” Phillips said. “New Hampshire has an extraordinary history of setting the tone for an entire presidential primary, and I think we will surprise.”
Two months ago, he was at 2% in the state’s polling. Today, he’s at 10% with two weeks to go.
The whole thing seems too preposterous to even be real. Some little-named Congressman from Minnesota is going to nearly beat an incumbent Democrat president in a New Hampshire primary?
Well, it’s happened before.
In 1968, U.S. Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-Minn.) stunned pundits by managing 42% against unpopular President Lyndon Johnson who received 48% in the New Hampshire primary. Three weeks later, with the Vietnam War weighing down the incumbent, Johnson uttered the infamous phrase that he would “neither seek nor accept” the Democratic nomination.
There’s no Vietnam War splitting up the Democratic Party in 2024, but Phillips says at least two issues are agitating voters – “costs and chaos.”
Many Americans are struggling to make ends meet amid inflation. Life is becoming too expense. Inflation and the rising costs of goods are polling as the top issues for voters this year.
Americans also see “chaos” at the southern border, as scores of people – folks not even from Mexico, originally, crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally in unprecedented numbers.
“People are feeling insecure economically, physically and that’s exactly why I’m doing this,” Phillips said.
That’s one of the reasons he’s doing this. He’s saying goodbye to his congressional career. He’s admittedly a seemingly impossible longshot.
But, as Phillips sees it, somebody must do it. President Biden was the right candidate in 2020. He’s not the right candidate in 2024. His numbers are terrible. According to Politics FiveThirtyEight, Biden’s first term favorability numbers equal those of Jimmy CARTER, George H.W. BUSH and Trump, all of whom lost re-election.
Phillips is convinced Trump beats Biden in a second head-to-head match-up. Biden surely couldn’t beat Nikki Haley if she somehow wins the GOP nomination.
The Democratic Party needs new blood, he says. It doesn’t have to be him. He told HBO host Bill Maher that he called Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and asked her to run.
She didn’t take the call. Phillips was left with the impression she’s waiting for 2028.
“I, on the other hand, intend to meet the moment, not to preclude anyone else from participating,” Phillips said. “I do hold your governor in the highest esteem. I’m disappointed that she and others didn’t recognize that this is the moment the country needs other candidates.”
Phillips said he hopes to meet Whitmer on the campaign trail. Unless they run into each other at the Senate Biggby, that’s probably not likely. Whitmer is “riding with Biden” as a campaign co-chair, after all.
He’s likely not get a warm reception from many in the Democratic establishment either.
The Michigan Democratic Party sent to Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson only Biden’s name as a primary candidate for 2024, even though Phillips and Marianne Williamson are both running.
All three names were put on the ballot because state law requires all declared candidates “generally advocated by the national news media” to be put on the ballot.
Still, preliminary polling results this week from MIRS News show Phillips’ name ID in Michigan being very low.
“Who is this we’re talking about?” asked political consultant Alexis Wiley, former chief of staff to Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, when asked about Phillips' plans for Michigan.
