Rep. Dean Phillips announces he'll run against Biden

CONCORD, N.H. >> On the last possible day to do so, Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota walked into the New Hampshire Statehouse on Friday through a side door and submitted paperwork to put his name on the state's primary ballot.

He then went downstairs to the visitors center, where he placed a pin for his newborn presidential campaign on a wall of historical campaign pins next to Hubert Humphrey, whom he called “my hero,” and removed a pin featuring former President Donald Trump from his desired spot to do so.

“By the way, this is a metaphor,” he joked.

Then the Democrat walked out into an unseasonably warm morning, stood at a lectern in front of a crowd of a few dozen people, composed largely of journalists and campaign staff, and formally declared that he was challenging President Joe Biden.

It was, he acknowledged to reporters earlier, the longest of long shots.

Biden's reelection campaign has the near-unanimous support of Democratic leaders, who are less than pleased to see Phillips running. And with the first primaries only about three months away, the hour is late.

He already has missed the filing deadline to appear on the ballot in Nevada, an important earlyvoting state.

“I'm at a massive disadvantage,” he said, before citing the Miracle on Ice in the time-honored tradition of underdog candidates everywhere. “This is the country of long shots.”

Phillips — a onetime Biden ally who has repeatedly praised the president even as he says he shouldn't run again — has made no secret of the animating principle of his campaign: Biden's 80 years of age, and what he sees as his party's refusal to grapple with voters who have, in survey after survey, expressed significant concerns.

In remarks making his bid official, Phillips, 54, called for generational change, warning of dire electoral consequences should the party refuse the debate he hopes his candidacy will force.

“It is time for the torch to be passed to a new generation of American leaders,” he said.

Among the sparse crowd in front of the statehouse in Concord, New Hampshire, were some who agreed.

Tracy Tanner Craig, 49, of Peterborough, New Hampshire, said that while she generally voted for Democrats in national elections, she had been disillusioned with the party since the Great Recession.

She and her husband, Matt Craig, 51, heard about Phillips five days ago, immediately began researching him and liked what they saw.