CV NEWS FEED // The largest newspaper in New Hampshire announced Monday that it is endorsing President Joe Biden’s longshot Democratic 2024 challenger, Rep. Dean Phillips, D-MN.
New Hampshire will hold both its Democratic and Republican primaries on Tuesday.
The Manchester-based New Hampshire Union Leader endorsed Biden in the 2020 general election over then-incumbent President Donald Trump. On Saturday, the paper endorsed former Ambassador Nikki Haley for this year’s Republican nomination.
“We already let you know that Nikki Haley is our choice on the Republican ticket,” wrote the Union Leader’s editorial board in a Monday op-ed. “Some of you may be handed a Democratic ballot on Tuesday and if so, you should consider Dean Phillips.”
“Dean Phillips and Nikki Haley share some common traits, not just a shared birthday,” the endorsement op-ed continued:
They both talk about term limits. They both talk about the problems of ballooning national deficits and debt. They both profess to offer pragmatic leadership and understand the constitutional limits on presidential power. Importantly, they are both in this race to offer a reasonable alternative to the Trump/Biden rematch we are told is inevitable.
The members of the Union Leader’s editorial board acknowledged that they “don’t agree with Congressman Phillips on all of his policy positions.”
Phillips’ positions “will be a hard sell for anyone to the right of center,” they wrote, but for “anyone who supports Joe Biden for his policies but would prefer a president born during the Vietnam war rather than WWII, they will not be disappointed with Dean Phillips.”
Phillips stated on X that he was “grateful” for the Union Leader’s endorsement.
>> BILLIONAIRE GIVES $1 MILLION TO DEAN PHILLIPS <<
The paper also pointed out that, unlike Biden, Phillips “is on the ballot and actively campaigning in [New Hampshire].”
As CatholicVote reported last week:
In protest against the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s decision to maintain the state’s tradition of holding its primary before South Carolina’s, Biden has decided to remove his name from the ballot for the contest. However, he is still running as a write-in candidate.
According to an Emerson College poll taken from January 18 to January 20, Biden leads Phillips 61% to 16% in New Hampshire. An American Research Group poll from the same timeframe shows the incumbent president with a slimmer lead of 54% to 32%.
Former Democratic New Hampshire House Speaker Steve Shurtleff endorsed Phillips over Biden in October 2023. Shurtleff was a co-chair of Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign in the state.
In his shocking decision, Shurtleff cited Biden’s failed attempt to deprive New Hampshire of its first-in-the-nation primary status on the Democratic side.
Phillips told a New Hampshire crowd on Sunday that he is open to mounting a third-party bid for the White House under the moderate “No Labels” banner after he has completed his 2024 challenge to Biden.
“I’m not going to turn my eye blindly, like all of my colleagues are doing, to other ways that we might still defeat Donald Trump,” Phillips said, as POLITICO reported. He called Trump “the most dangerous man in the world.”
“Whether it is any third-party entity, if they have data that shows that by putting up a certain candidate, who could actually take votes away from Donald Trump, if it is a Trump-Biden match-up, why would we not all consider that?” the congressman added.
Phillips also stated that he wants to remain in the primary race against Biden “all the way to the [Democratic National] [C]onvention.”