Dean Phillips
American businessman and politician (born 1969) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dean Benson Phillips[1] (né Pfefer; born January 20, 1969)[2] is an American politician, businessman, and former presidential candidate who served from 2019 to 2025 as the U.S. representative for Minnesota's 3rd congressional district.[3] A member of the Democratic Party, Phillips is the former chairman and co-owner of Talenti Gelato, former co-owner of Belvedere Vodka, and president and CEO of his family's distilled spirits business, Phillips Distilling Company.[4][5][6]
Dean Phillips | |
|---|---|
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| Co-Chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee | |
| In office January 3, 2023 – October 1, 2024 | |
| Leader | Hakeem Jeffries |
| Preceded by | Debbie Dingell Matt Cartwright Ted Lieu |
| Succeeded by | Lori Trahan |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota's 3rd district | |
| In office January 3, 2019 – January 3, 2025 | |
| Preceded by | Erik Paulsen |
| Succeeded by | Kelly Morrison |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Dean Benson Pfefer January 20, 1969 Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) |
Karin Einisman
(m. 1995; div. 2015)Annalise Glick
(m. 2019; div. 2024) |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | Pauline Phillips (grandmother, Dear_Abby) Eppie Lederer (great aunt, Ask_Ann_Landers) |
| Education | Brown University (BA) University of Minnesota (MBA) |
Phillips was first elected in 2018, defeating six-term Republican incumbent Erik Paulsen.[7] He became the first Democrat to win the seat since 1958, and was reelected twice by comfortable margins. In November 2023, Phillips announced that he would not run for another House term.[8] Despite consistently voting in support of President Joe Biden's policy positions, he challenged him for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2024 U.S. presidential election.[9][10] Phillips received four delegates to the 2024 Democratic National Convention, the second-most of any candidate in the primaries, making him the runner-up to Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination.[11][12]
Early life, education, and career
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Phillips was born to DeeDee (Cohen) and Artie Pfefer in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1969.[13] His father was killed in the Vietnam War six months after Phillips was born, making him a Gold Star Son.[14] His mother married Eddie Phillips, heir to the Phillips Distilling Company and the son of advice columnist Pauline Phillips (popularly known as Dear Abby),[15] in 1972. Eddie adopted Dean, who took the last name Phillips.[16] He was raised Jewish.[17]
In the early 1970s, Phillips moved from Saint Paul to Edina. He attended The Blake School.[18] In the summer of 1989, Phillips interned for Senator Patrick Leahy on Capitol Hill, an experience that helped inspire his own public service 30 years later.[19] Phillips attended Brown University, where he served as consul (president) of the Sigma Chi fraternity, Beta Nu chapter. He graduated in 1991. Phillips worked for bicycle equipment startup InMotion for two years before joining his family's business Phillips Distilling Company, where he served in multiple positions in rectifying, production, sales, and marketing management. He completed his Master of Business Administration at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management in 2000, after which he was named president and CEO of the Company.[15]
After selling Belvedere Vodka to luxury conglomerate LVMH for an undisclosed sum in the mid 2000s, Phillips pioneered the organic vodka category with Prairie Organic Vodka and flavored whiskey category with Phillips Union Whisky. In 2012, he stepped aside to run one of his other corporate investments, Talenti gelato, where he served as chairman until it was sold for an undisclosed amount to Unilever in 2014.[20] [20] Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party chairman Ken Martin recruited Phillips to run for Congress after trying for many years. Martin and others worked hard to get Phillips elected and flip the seat in the third district in 2018. He saw Phillips as a “rising star” in the party who was charting his path in Washington.[21] In 2018, former Minnesota Supreme Court justice and professional football player Alan Page contributed $1,000 to Phillips's campaign against Republican U.S. Representative Erik Paulsen in Minnesota's Third Congressional District.[22] During that campaign, Phillips drove a 1960 International Harvester milk truck emblazoned with his name and the tagline "Government Repair Truck" to 32 cities and towns across the district.[23][24]
U.S. House of Representatives
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Elections
2018
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In 2018, Phillips ran for the United States House of Representatives in Minnesota's 3rd congressional district as a Democrat.[25] In the Democratic primary, he defeated former sales associate Cole Young with 81.6% of the vote. Phillips won all three counties in the district.[26] In the general election, Phillips defeated incumbent Republican Erik Paulsen with 55.6% of the vote.[27] When he took office in 2019, he became the first Democrat to hold this seat since 1961.[28]
2020
Phillips ran for reelection in 2020. He defeated Cole Young in the Democratic primary with 90.7% of the vote[29] and faced off against the Republican nominee, businessman Kendall Qualls.[30] Phillips defeated Qualls with 55.6% of the vote.[31]
2022
Phillips was unopposed in the Democratic primary. In the general election, he defeated the Republican nominee, retired U.S. Navy submarine officer Tom Weiler, with 60% of the vote.[32]
Tenure
According to FiveThirtyEight's congressional vote tracker at ABC News, Phillips voted with President Joe Biden's stated public policy positions 100% of the time,[33] making him more liberal than average in the 117th Congress when predictive scoring (district partisanship and voting record) is used.[33] Phillips voted in favor of Biden's major economic agenda items, including the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS and Science Act.[34] During the start of his first term in 2019, the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University placed him 27th out of 435 members in terms of bipartisanship.[35] On March 5, 2020, Phillips received an endorsement from Brady: United Against Gun Violence for working across party lines to pass gun violence prevention bills.[36] Phillips sponsored the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020, which President Donald Trump signed into law.[37][38]
In 2021, Phillips received the Bipartisan Policy Center's Bipartisan Legislative Action Award.[39] He authored five provisions in the For the People Act, an anti-corruption and voting rights reform bill that passed the House in March 2021. It also included a major overhaul of campaign finance and redistricting laws. Phillips's provisions for the package included the Voter NOTICE Act, which sought to fight disinformation, and the FIREWALL Act, which sought to strengthen safeguards of online advertising.[40] Phillips played for the Democrats' team in the 2021 Congressional Baseball Game at Nationals Park.[41][42] On December 16, 2021, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund endorsed Phillips for reelection.[43] Phillips co-sponsored the Liberian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act, giving Liberians a pathway to citizenship, which Trump signed into law.[44][45] Phillips co-sponsored H.R. 2307, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act, which would put a price on carbon and return the proceeds to taxpayers,[46] and H.R. 8395, the EPA Regulatory Authority Act of 2022, which would restore the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.[47]
On March 5, 2022, Phillips was among the lawmakers who met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about providing additional help to Ukraine in fending off Russia's invasion.[48][49] On May 10, 2022, Phillips received an A+ on End Citizens United's anti-corruption and voting rights scorecard for "rejecting corporate PAC money and supporting once-in-a-generation anti-corruption and voting rights legislation".[50] Phillips was among the U.S. delegation that attended the 2022 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.[51] After Roe v. Wade (1973) was overturned in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022), Phillips co-sponsored bills to protect women's reproductive rights that aimed to ensure access to abortion and reproductive health care across states, including H.R. 8297: Ensuring Access to Abortion Act of 2022,[52] as well as HR 8111: My Body, My Data Act of 2022.[53]
Phillips sponsored the Pathways to Policing Act to provide $50 million to the Department of Justice and local communities in funding to enhance officer recruitment efforts.[54][55][56] Another $50 million would go to the Department of Justice to create Minnesota-style Pathways to Policing programs in states across the nation.[57] On July 11, 2022, the Sierra Club endorsed Phillips for reelection to Congress for his environmental advocacy.[58] On June 21, 2023, Phillips sponsored the Allergen Disclosure In Non-Food Articles (ADINA) Act, which would require drug labels to identify ingredients that contain, or are derived from, major food allergens or gluten-containing grains on par with labeling standards for food products.[59][60][61] On July 10, 2023, Phillips co-led the bicameral IDEA Full Funding Act in the House of Representatives. This legislation aimed to ensure Congress fully funds the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).[62][63] Phillips has expressed pride that he is the only member of Congress to have refused all money from lobbyists, special interest groups, and Political Action Committees, and not to have his own leadership Political Action Committee.[64]
On December 20, 2023, Phillips co-sponsored the Medicare for All Act.[65] This marked a departure from his earlier position on healthcare; he said that he had previously been "convinced through propaganda that [single-payer healthcare] was a nonsensical leftist notion".[66] He cited a confluence of factors that shifted his view in favor of Medicare for All, including his experience caring for his daughter who had been diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, the financial strain of providing health insurance to his employees as a business owner, and the dynamics of representing a congressional district that includes the headquarters of UnitedHealth Group as well as many people who struggle to access healthcare.[67]
On May 17, 2024, Phillips reintroduced the Voter Choice Act, which provides $40 million in federal matching grants, covering up to 50% of the cost for local and state governments that choose to adopt ranked-choice voting.[68][69] On September 27, he introduced the American Dream Accounts Act of 2024, which would establish in the Social Security Administration a $5,000 account for every American child to be invested in an index fund and vest upon graduation from high school, GED, or waiver for disability.[70][71] On December 16, Phillips delivered his farewell address on the House floor.[72] In it, he criticized America's two major political parties for "legalized corruption" that prioritizes their own "self-protection over principles"[73] and urged his colleagues to find commonsense solutions and focus on ideas over ideology in solving problems.[74][75]
Committee assignments
For the 118th Congress:[76]
Caucus memberships
2024 presidential campaign
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In July 2022, Phillips became the first Democratic member of Congress to say President Biden should not run for reelection and called for "generational change", pointing to Biden's age.[81][82] In July 2023, Phillips said he was considering challenging Biden in the 2024 Democratic presidential primaries.[83] Before launching his campaign, Phillips reportedly reached out to other elected Democratic officials, such as Governors Gretchen Whitmer and JB Pritzker, to urge them to enter the presidential primary, but they declined to speak with him directly.[84][85] Phillips said that he found both the city of Washington D.C. and the reluctance of his fellow Democrats to call on Biden not to run again to be distastefully insular and partisan.[86] In October 2023, he announced that he would step down as co-chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee because his views on the 2024 U.S. presidential election were incongruent with the majority of his caucus.[87] On October 27, in Concord, New Hampshire, he announced his candidacy for president[88] after filing the paperwork with the Federal Election Commission the previous day.[89] During his campaign, Phillips argued that Biden would be a weak general-election candidate due to his age and low approval ratings.[90] He campaigned as a younger alternative who would be a stronger opponent to Donald Trump.[91][92] Phillips's campaign slogan was "Make America Affordable Again", a play on Trump's political movement and "Make America Great Again", as well as high voter dissatisfaction with the economy, especially inflation and prices.[93] Phillips argued to his detractors in the Democratic party that “the idea that voters having a choice in the primary will ultimately threaten democracy by throwing the election to Trump demonstrates how far off the rails we’ve gotten.”[21]
In November 2023, the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences at Dartmouth College and the Dartmouth Political Union co-hosted a discussion with Phillips as part of their "Path to the Presidency" speaker series to discuss his campaign and policy positions.[94][95][96] In New Hampshire, Phillips hit the campaign trail with a “Dean Phillips for President” bus, and his 1960 International Harvester milk truck, dubbed the "government repair truck", made an appearance repainted with "Dean Phillips for President".[24] On December 23, 2023, Phillips said that Biden should "thoughtfully exit" the 2024 race.[97] On January 20, 2024, Phillips told Axios that he thought it would be "impossible" for Biden to do the job for four more years, and that "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. That is an absolute truth."[98] He said he would try to gain access to the primary ballots in several states where the Democratic Party had excluded him.[99][100] The Democratic Party of Wisconsin left Phillips off the ballot; he appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court on January 26, 2024.[101] The court unanimously ruled on February 2 that Phillips should be included on the ballot.[102] Phillips accused Biden campaign representatives of pressuring liberal media outlets into blackballing and not platforming him.[103][104] The New York Times reported that during his campaign, Phillips found himself deplatformed, taken off the ballot in some states and rarely invited on television to make his case.[105] Phillips also accused the Democratic National Committee of actively obstructing Democrats and Independents from ballot access—"bleeding campaigns dry" by suing non-incumbent candidates and imposing "absurd signature requirements".[106] Phillips called the DNC's ruling that New Hampshire's presidential primary was "meaningless" and that no New Hampshire delegates would be counted at the convention "one of the most egregious affronts to democracy that I've ever seen in my entire lifetime".[107] In a statement to Politico, he called Florida Democrats' handling of the primary process a "blatant act of electoral corruption" and demanded that Biden "condemn and immediately address" it. Phillips added, "The intentional disenfranchisement of voters runs counter to everything for which our Democratic Party and country stand. Our mission as Democrats is to defeat authoritarians, not become them."[108]
Phillips insisted throughout his campaign that the Democratic Party had become "delusional" for thinking that Biden could overtake former President Trump in a rematch. An argument and central critique of Phillips's campaign is that if Democrats created room for a competitive primary against the unpopular sitting president, voters would hypothetically have a chance to hear other points of view.[109][110][111] He argued that the Democratic establishment was choking off his challenge because it couldn't accept that "Biden is going to get creamed".[112] In public, Phillips was ridiculed. In private, others shared his concerns.[113][114] Phillips said that in his first 100 days as president he intended to build "the most extraordinary bipartisan cabinet in American history". His other first-100-day priorities included "zero-based budgeting” and hiring an international consulting firm to conduct a "top-down assessment" of the federal government.[115] Phillips told CNN that when he entered the presidential race, "This was not about me ... But my inability to attract other candidates, to inspire the president to recognize that it is time, compels me to serve my country because it appears that President Joe Biden is going to lose the next election."[90]
Phillips received his first endorsement from New Hampshire State Representative Steve Shurtleff, who said his main reason for doing so was Biden allowing the Democratic National Committee to attempt to strip the state of its first-in-the-nation status.[116] Shurtleff said in January 2023 that he would endorse a candidate other than Biden if this occurred.[117] New Hampshire State Representative Tom Schamberg also endorsed Phillips. Forward Party founder Andrew Yang consistently expressed support for Phillips's campaign since soon after its launch, and co-hosted campaign events in Manchester and Hanover, New Hampshire, with him on January 18.[118][119] In January 2024, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said he supported Phillips's campaign, donating $1 million to his We Deserve Better campaign PAC.[120]
On January 8, 2024, Phillips participated in a debate against Marianne Williamson hosted by New England College in Manchester, New Hampshire.[121] On January 12, 2024, NewsNation hosted a forum featuring Phillips and other Democratic presidential candidates. Biden was invited but did not attend. Dan Abrams moderated the discussion.[122] On January 23, 2024, Phillips scolded reporters during a press gaggle in New Hampshire, saying they weren't focused on the issues Americans care about. He told them that voters care about the economy, inflation, health care, Social Security, homelessness in their cities, and education, not the reporters' "clickbait" questions.[123] On January 27, Biden and Phillips spoke about their bids for the Democratic nomination at the South Carolina Democratic Party's First-in-the-Nation Celebration dinner in Columbia, South Carolina.[124] Other notable people who endorsed Phillips are angel investor and podcaster Jason Calacanis,[125] CEO of Galaxy Investment Partners Michael Novogratz,[126] political and corporate strategist Steve Schmidt,[127] and Jeffrey P. Weaver, political strategist and former campaign manager for Bernie Sanders.[128] Newspapers that endorsed Phillips are New Hampshire Union Leader,[129] Conway Daily Sun,[130] and The Detroit News.[131]
Phillips lost the New Hampshire Democratic primary to Biden, receiving 19.9% of the vote. Biden was a write-in candidate.[132] In the California primary, Phillips received 2.8% of the total votes cast, with 100,284 votes.[133] On March 6, 2024, Phillips suspended his campaign following Super Tuesday and endorsed Biden.[134] Phillips had the second-most awarded pledged delegates of any candidate in the 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries, with four.[11] He earned a total of 529,486 votes in the Democratic presidential primary.[135] In the Ohio Democratic presidential primary, he received 12.9% of the total votes cast and three delegates to the Democratic National Convention, meeting the 15% threshold of votes needed to receive a delegate in a congressional district in the state's 2nd, 6th, and 14th districts.[136][135] In the Nebraska primary, Phillips received 9.8% of the total vote and earned one delegate by receiving the most votes of any candidate in Logan County, with 55.6% of the vote.[137] Based on the Nebraska primary results, one Phillips delegate represented Madison County at the Nebraska Democratic State Convention.[138] In the Oklahoma primary, he received 8.9% of the vote and a plurality in Cimarron County.[139][140][141] In the Missouri primary, he tied with Biden in Clark County.[142][143]
On April 16, 2024, Phillips blamed the national political parties, the media, and "apathetic" voters for his failure to succeed as a modern-day Paul Revere, warning his party of the dangers of allowing an aging Biden to once again take on Trump. He also said he was surprised by the strength of the nation's two-party system, a "duopoly" that has "a decreasing focus on the country and an increasing focus on winning".[144] Biden withdrew from the presidential election on July 21, 2024.[145] The same day, shortly before Biden ended his campaign, Phillips urged Democrats to hold an "immediate" vote of confidence on Biden in a Wall Street Journal column and Face the Nation interview amid growing concerns about his reelection chances.[146][147][148] Despite claiming that he still endorsed Biden, Phillips also said on Face the Nation that "it is time [for Biden] to step aside and turn this over to a new generation."[147] After Biden withdrew, Phillips said numerous Democrats reached out to him and expressed regret at not taking his concerns more seriously. He expressed disappointment that Biden had not dropped out far earlier and said that "vindication has never felt so unfulfilling". The New York Times dubbed him the "modern Cassandra of American politics" because his warnings about Biden's fitness and age proved prescient despite being ignored.[105] The Minnesota Star Tribune reported in August that Phillips said, "If people write anything, I just hope that they might write if [Biden] had debated me then and he had been on one stage, unscripted, with a national audience, and he demonstrated that decline then, this would have been very different circumstances. ... And that's what I was trying to do."[149]
On July 22, 2024, the day after Biden withdrew, Phillips backed eventual Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris but also proposed a straw poll of delegates ahead of the Democratic National Convention to determine the party's top four presidential contenders, who would then take part in four town halls outlining their platforms.[150] After the town halls, the delegates would vote to choose the nominee.[151][152] Phillips explained his reasoning for running against Biden in an August 20 interview at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, saying that he had argued as early as July 2022 that Biden should "pass the torch"; after Biden withdrew in July 2024, some of his colleagues understood why he ran.[153] Phillips was a superdelegate to the 2024 Democratic National Convention and told Politico on the convention floor, "I was trying to be a Paul Revere, not a George Washington."[154][155]
On November 10, 2024, journalist Shannon Bream asked Phillips whether he felt overlooked by his party during the campaign and election; he replied, "My voice, yes, was ignored, but tens of millions of Americans' voices were ignored and suppressed and disenfranchised."[156] In an interview after the election, Phillips said: "My run wasn't about me. It was about having a legitimate, invitational, competitive, spirited primary. That means debate. And had there been other candidates on a primary stage, I'm almost certain that Americans, at least Democratic primary voters, would have selected someone in a better position to ultimately beat the most dangerous Republican candidate of our lifetime."[157] HuffPost reported that after the election Phillips said of his White House bid, "I would do it a thousand times again... My only regret—and it's a big one—is that so many of my colleagues who felt exactly the same way couldn't find the courage to say and do something about it."[158] U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett, the first Democrat in Congress to openly call for Biden to withdraw from the election after the first presidential debate, said after Trump won, "I only regret I didn't do it earlier ... I believe that the only person in our caucus who doesn't share some responsibility for the outcome is Dean Phillips, who came out early."[159] On December 26, 2024, Mother Jones named Phillips a "Hero of 2024" for being the only elected official to challenge Biden in the Democratic primary who tried to make the case that Biden was unfit for office.[160]
As part of the "11 Democratic Thinkers on What the Party Needs Right Now" article in Politico, Yang called for Philips to become the new Democratic National Committee Chairman. He wrote: "First, the Democrats should apologize for sandbagging Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary. After, they should name Dean Phillips the new chair of the DNC, as the only Democrat with the character to sacrifice his own career for the good of the country."[161] On December 28, 2024, Politico reported that Phillips was right about Biden's reelection campaign and that his decision to launch a primary challenge proved prescient after Biden's performance in his debate against Trump.[162] On the same day, the Guardian reported that Phillips was "saddened" to be vindicated in his prediction that Biden could not win reelection.[163] On December 30, 2024, The New York Times dubbed Phillips the "Most Prophetic" in their 2024 High School Yearbook of American Politics for challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination.[164] On January 5, 2025, an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal argued that Phillips should be given his due "for questioning President Biden's fitness for office as early as July 2022".[165] On January 7, 2025, a New York Times opinion piece argued that Phillips should be nominated for a Profile in Courage Award because it was left to him to "play the part of the boy who says the emperor has no clothes".[166] On January 22, 2025, Democratic political strategist Jessica Tarlov, during a podcast with New York University professor Scott Galloway, mentions that "there are all these Democrats who now feel emboldened to talk about how they knew Biden shouldn't have been the nominee... and the time for that was in the public square frankly when Dean Phillips was screaming from the rooftops if I have to be the guy I'll be the guy."[167] On February 9, 2025, former U.S. Representative Tim Roemer wrote the Democratic Party an open letter saying, "We had an opportunity during the primary campaign (when we ignored Rep. Dean Phillips' warnings) to voice our concerns about Biden's age or to remind him that we voted for him in 2020 to defeat Donald Trump and serve one term."[168] On February 14, 2025, former U.S. Representative John Delaney tweeted that, "Democrats certainly would have been better served listening to Dean Phillips because it turns out that he was 100% correct in his assessment of the 2024 election so perhaps the better plan might be to not ignore what he has to say but listen and learn?"[169]
Electoral history
2018
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic (DFL) | Dean Phillips | 56,697 | 81.6 | |
| Democratic (DFL) | Cole Young | 12,784 | 18.4 | |
| Total votes | 69,481 | 100.0 | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic (DFL) | Dean Phillips | 202,402 | 55.6 | |
| Republican | Erik Paulsen (incumbent) | 160,839 | 44.2 | |
| Write-in | 707 | 0.2 | ||
| Total votes | 363,948 | 100 | ||
| Democratic (DFL) gain from Republican | ||||
2020
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic (DFL) | Dean Phillips (incumbent) | 73,011 | 90.7 | |
| Democratic (DFL) | Cole Young | 7,443 | 9.3 | |
| Total votes | 80,454 | 100.0 | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic (DFL) | Dean Phillips (incumbent) | 246,666 | 55.6 | |
| Republican | Kendall Qualls | 196,625 | 44.3 | |
| Write-in | 312 | 0.1 | ||
| Total votes | 443,603 | 100 | ||
2022
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic (DFL) | Dean Phillips (incumbent) | 198,883 | 59.6 | |
| Republican | Tom Weiler | 134,797 | 40.4 | |
| Write-in | 241 | 0.2 | ||
| Total votes | 333,921 | 100 | ||
| Democratic (DFL) hold | ||||
Personal life
Phillips is divorced and has two adult daughters. He is Jewish,[173] and was acknowledged by the Minnesota publication The American Jewish World for serving on the board of Temple Israel in Minneapolis.[174] Phillips's paternal grandmother, Pauline Phillips, was the author of the advice column "Dear Abby", under the pen name Abigail Van Buren.[175] Phillips is friends with actor Woody Harrelson. He met and befriended Harrelson when Harrelson rented his house while shooting the movie Wilson. Harrelson joined Phillips on a trip to Vietnam, where Phillips's father was killed in a helicopter crash.[176][177] Phillips is a Minnesota Vikings fan.[178][179]
References
External links
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