The danger for President Joe Biden isn’t that Rep. Dean Phillips is a threat in the primary.
Rep. Dean Phillips holds a rally outside of the New Hampshire Statehouse after handing over his declaration of candidacy form for president on Friday. | Gaelen Morse/Getty ImagesDean Phillips poses a real danger to President Joe Biden’s reelection next year — even though he doesn’t stand much of a chance of winning the Democratic nomination.
That argument could very well pull some Democratic primary voters toward Phillips — even most Democrats who say they will vote for Biden again in the primary are worried he’s too old. But it’s unlikely to convert enough of them to legitimately threaten Biden’s hold on the nomination. Given how significant a weakness his age is, it would be easy for Republicans to weaponize — and the more voters hear that message now, the more Biden risks that attack defining him in the general. And now voters will be hearing those arguments earlier and more often.
Already, the Minnesota congressmember is signaling this will be a central part of his argument. And he is perhaps a better messenger than Trump, who is only three years younger than Biden. Among Biden supporters, three-in-four of them, 75 percent, said they are “definitely decided” in their primary vote choice. And nearly as many, 69 percent, said they’d vote for Biden even if he didn’t file to appear on the ballot.
But South Carolina is the state that made Biden the Democratic nominee in 2020, and Black voters make up a majority of the primary electorate there. Phillips may be focusing on South Carolina, but there’s a reason Biden pushed to elevate the state as part of the DNC’s calendar shakeup.
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