Dean Phillips long-shot bid against Biden and comments on age validated

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), who challenged President Joe Biden‘s reelection campaign, accused Biden of not being mentally capable of governing for another term long before the growing chorus of party members echoing that sentiment led him to leave the race.

Phillips was one of a handful of outsiders that tried to challenge but never threatened Biden’s candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, though he dropped out and eventually endorsed Biden despite his concerns about the president‘s mental fitness.

“At that stage of life, it is impossible ultimately to conduct, to prosecute the office of the American presidency in the way that this country in the world needs right now,” he told Axios in January. “That is an absolute truth.”

When Phillips ended his campaign in March, he said in a WCCO Radio interview that while he thinks Biden “is at a stage in life where his capacities are diminished, he is still a man of competency and decency and integrity. And the alternative, Donald Trump is a very dangerous, dangerous man,” per the Associated Press.

While Biden frequently has had mental miscues over the course of his administration, questions about his mental fitness for office did not become mainstream within the party until after the June 27 presidential debate with former President Donald Trump. Biden appeared lost, confused, and unable to articulate key points during the debate.

A day after the debate, Phillips posted a quote from Mahatma Gandhi on X, “Speak only if it improves upon the silence.”

Since then, more than two dozen lawmakers from the Democratic Party called on him to resign, though he had shown very little indication he would until he announced his decision to drop out of the race on Sunday afternoon.