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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 and businessman who has served as the U.S. representative from Minnesota's 3rd congressional district since 2019.[3] A member of the Democratic Party, his district encompasses the western suburbs of the Twin Cities, such as Bloomington, Minnetonka, Edina, Maple Grove, Plymouth, and Eden Prairie. Outside of politics, Phillips has both owned and started several companies in addition to serving as president and CEO of his family's liquor business, the Phillips Distilling Company.[4][5][6] He is the former co-owner of Talenti gelato and co-owns Penny's Coffee.
Dean Phillips | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Official portrait, 2021 | |
| Co-Chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee | |
| In office January 3, 2023 – October 1, 2023 | |
| 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 | |
| Assumed office January 3, 2019 | |
| Preceded by | Erik Paulsen |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Dean Benson Pfefer January 20, 1969 Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic (DFL) |
| Spouse(s) |
Karin Einisman
(m. 1995; div. 2015)Annalise Glick (m. 2019) |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | Pauline Phillips (grandmother) Jeanne Phillips (aunt) |
| Education | Brown University (BA) University of Minnesota (MBA) |
| Website | House website |
First elected in 2018, Phillips defeated six-term Republican incumbent Erik Paulsen.[7] By flipping the previously Republican district, he became the first Democrat to win the seat since 1958, and has since been reelected twice by comfortable margins. In November 2023, Phillips announced that he would not run for reelection.[8] Despite consistently voting in support of President Joe Biden's policy positions, he challenged him for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2024 presidential election.[9][10] Phillips received the second-highest number of delegates of any candidate in the primaries (four), but was unsuccessful.[11][12]
Phillips was born to DeeDee (Cohen) and Artie Pfefer in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1969.[13] His biological father was killed in the Vietnam War six months after Phillips was born. His mother married Eddie Phillips, heir to the Phillips Distilling Company and the son of advice columnist Pauline Phillips (popularly known as Dear Abby),[14] in 1972. Eddie adopted Dean, who took the last name Phillips.[15] He was raised Jewish.[16]
In the early 1970s, Phillips moved from Saint Paul to Edina. He attended The Blake School.[17]
Phillips graduated from Brown University in 1991 and was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. He worked for bicycle equipment and apparel company InMotion for two years, and then joined his family's company's corporate office. He later completed his Master of Business Administration at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management in 2000. After graduation, he was named the president and CEO of his family's organization, Phillips Distilling Company.[14]
Phillips served as the company's president and CEO from 2000 to 2012. He then stepped aside to run one of his other corporate investments, Talenti gelato, until it was sold for an undisclosed amount to Unilever in 2014.[18] In 2016 he founded Penny's Coffee, a coffeeshop chain he still owns, which has two locations in the Twin Cities metropolitan area as of 2022.[18]
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In 2018, Phillips ran for the United States House of Representatives in Minnesota's 3rd congressional district as a Democrat.[19] 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.[20]
In the general election, Phillips defeated incumbent Republican Erik Paulsen with 55.6% of the vote.[21] When he took office in 2019, he became the first Democrat to hold this seat since 1961.[citation needed]
Phillips ran for reelection in 2020. He defeated Cole Young in the Democratic primary with 90.7% of the vote[22] and faced off against the Republican nominee, businessman Kendall Qualls.[23] Phillips defeated Qualls with 55.6% of the vote.[24]
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.[25]
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,[26] making him more liberal than average in the 117th Congress when predictive scoring (district partisanship and voting record) is used.[26] 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.[27]
Phillips sponsored the legislation of the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020 that was signed into law by President Trump.[28][29]
On December 20, 2023, Phillips signed on as a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act.[30] 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".[31] 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.[32]
For the 118th Congress:[33]
In July 2023, Phillips said he was considering challenging President Joe Biden in the 2024 Democratic presidential primaries.[36] 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 presidential race were incongruent with the majority of his caucus.[37] On October 27, in Concord, New Hampshire, he announced a run for the presidency[38] after he officially filed the paperwork with the Federal Election Commission the previous day.[39] Phillips argued during his campaign that Biden would be a weak general election candidate due to his age and low approval ratings.[40] Phillips said he would challenge to gain access to the primary ballots of several states where the Democratic Party had excluded him.[41][42] The Democratic Party of Wisconsin left Phillips off the ballot; he appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court on January 26, 2024.[43] The court unanimously ruled on February 2 that Phillips should be included on the ballot.[44] He accused representatives of the Biden campaign of pressuring liberal media outlets not to platform him.[45][46] 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".[47]
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.[48] Shurtleff said in January 2023 that he would endorse a candidate other than Biden if this occurred.[49] New Hampshire State Representative Tom Schamberg also endorsed Phillips.
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.[50][51]
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.[52]
On January 8, 2024, Phillips participated in a debate against Marianne Williamson hosted by New England College in Manchester, New Hampshire.[53]
On January 12, NewsNation hosted a forum featuring Phillips and other Democratic presidential candidates. Biden was invited but did not attend. Dan Abrams moderated the discussion.[54]
Other notable people who endorsed Phillips are angel investor and podcaster Jason Calacanis,[55] political and corporate strategist Steve Schmidt,[56] and Jeffrey P. Weaver, political strategist and former campaign manager for Bernie Sanders.[57] Newspapers that endorsed Phillips are New Hampshire Union Leader,[58] Conway Daily Sun,[59] and The Detroit News.[60]
Phillips lost the New Hampshire Democratic primary to Biden, receiving 19.9% of the vote. Biden was a write-in candidate.[61] In the California primary, Phillips received 2.8% of the total votes cast, with 100,284 votes.[62]
On March 6, 2024, Phillips suspended his campaign following Super Tuesday and endorsed Joe Biden.[63] After the endorsement President Biden calls Phillips on the phone. Phillips says the two “had a wonderful conversation” that ended in an invitation to discuss the state of the 2024 race at the executive mansion.[64][65]
Phillips has the second-most awarded delegates in the 2024 Democratic Party presidential primaries, with four.[66] In the Ohio Democratic presidential primary, he received three delegates to the Democratic National Convention,[11] meeting the 15% threshold of votes needed to receive a delegate in a congressional district in the state's 2nd, 6th, and 14th districts.[67] In the Nebraska primary, Phillips earned one delegate by receiving the most votes of any candidate in Logan County, with 55.6% of the vote.[68] Based on the Nebraska primary results, one Phillips delegate represented Madison County at the Nebraska Democratic State Convention.[69] In the Oklahoma primary, he received a plurality in Cimarron County.[70][71][72] In the Missouri primary, he tied with Biden in Clark County.[73][74]
Biden withdrew from the presidential election on July 21, 2024.[75] 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.[76][77][78] 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".[77]
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, "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.[79]
Phillips 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.[80] After the town halls, the delegates would vote to choose the nominee.[81][82]
U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett, the first sitting Democrat in Congress to openly call for President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 United States presidential 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."[83]
| 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 | ||||
| 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 | ||
| 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 | ||||
Phillips is married and has two daughters from a previous marriage. He is Jewish[87] and was acknowledged by the Minnesota publication The American Jewish World for serving on the board of Temple Israel in Minneapolis.[88]
Phillips's paternal grandmother Pauline Phillips was the author of the advice column "Dear Abby", under the pen name Abigail Van Buren.[89]
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