Rep. Dean Phillips took on President Joe Biden in the official Democratic primary on Thursday night before traveling to New Hampshire, where he will officially register to vote in the Granite State.
The 54-year-old father of two from Minnesota, who is among the wealthiest members of Congress, confirmed the open secret to CBS’s Bob Costa, replying, “I am, I have to,” when asked if he planned to investigate the presidency.
“I think President Biden has done a spectacular job for our country, but it’s not about the past.” This is an election about the future. “I will not sit still, I will not remain silent in the face of the numbers that say so clearly that we are facing an emergency next November,” Phillips said.
Phillips had done everything he could to announce a campaign without saying it was happening: he parked his “government repair truck” in front of the New Hampshire Capitol in Concord, had volunteers hand out leaflets for a rally on Friday and let a campaign bus into the State driving.
As a businessman, Phillips convinced Americans to spend a little more money on products like Belvedere vodka and Talenti gelato, but as a presidential candidate he wants to save people money – the bus bears the slogan: “Make America Affordable Again.”
Rep. Dean Phillips attends President Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration with his wife, Annalize. The 54-year-old congressman will challenge the 80-year-old president for the Democratic nomination on the grounds that he is too old for a second term
Phillips on Capitol Hill. The congressman was first elected in 2018, replacing a long-held Republican district two years into former President Donald Trump’s term
Phillips with his daughters Pia (left) and Daniela (right). The Minnesota representative is one of the richest members of Congress and brought Belvedere vodka to the United States
Phillips will be the first Democrat with government experience to challenge Biden, 80, who announced in April that he would seek a second term.
Although Phillips hinted on his campaign bus that the campaign would have an economic focus, it will be difficult to differentiate himself from Biden since he voted 100 percent with the Democratic president.
The real problem for him is that Biden’s view – which he shares with the majority of Americans – is that the president is too old to run for a second term.
“I think the country would be greatly benefited by a new generation of compelling, well-prepared and dynamic Democrats coming forward,” Phillips said during a radio interview in July, declining to support a second Biden presidential run.
An AP-NORC poll in August found that 77 percent of Americans — including 69 percent of Democrats — said Biden is too old to be effective for four more years.
Phillips said Biden would have to be “15 to 20 years younger” to receive a convincing endorsement from him.
Phillips chose New Hampshire to kick off the campaign because the first primary is taking place there – and Biden will not appear on the ballot.
Traditionally, New Hampshire hosts the country’s first primary days after the Iowa caucuses – but after hours of the Iowa Democratic Party failing to tabulate 2020 results and Biden’s first victory coming in South Carolina, the president greenlit a plan that would to reshuffle the Democratic primaries.
But New Hampshire has a law on its books that says it must hold the primary and Republicans control the state government, so the Granite State will hold an unsanctioned Democratic primary instead.
Phillips stands in front of a Phillips Distilling Company truck on the right. His mother married into the Phillips family and the congressman took control of the company in 1993, gaining the rights to bring Belvedere vodka, a state-owned Polish brand, to the United States
Phillips, a divorced father of two daughters, spoke out again about Annalize Glick in 2019
This opens the door for Phillips or another challenger to beat Biden in the state — unless Biden supporters can successfully run a write-in campaign.
Phillips will likely play up his backstory, which is one of both sadness and happiness.
When he was six months old, the congressman’s biological father, Artie Pfefer, was killed in the Vietnam War.
His mother, DeeDee, remarried to a man named Eddie Phillips, who was the heir to the Phillips Distilling Company, which is now the largest alcohol producer in Minnesota.
Eddie’s mother was Pauline Phillips, who started the advice column “Dear Abby.”
Eddie adopted Dean as his son.
Phillips was sent to Brown University and then received an MBA from the University of Minnesota.
From there, he assumed the position of President and CEO of Phillips Distilling Company in 1993.
Phillips’ early victory was featured in a 2017 Forbes profile of the aspiring congressman.
The “Government Repair Truck” that Phillips used during his run for Congress was in front of the New Hampshire state capitol on Thursday before his official campaign kickoff
Phillips’ mother DeeDee with Eddie Phillips, the heir to a drinking fortune whom she married after the congressman’s father died in Vietnam
Phillips and other Minnesota lawmakers stand in front of Air Force One after being driven to the state by Biden. Phillips voted 100 percent for Biden, but argues that the president is too old to run for a second term
Phillips’ dog Henry, a Norwich terrier, is often seen on Capitol Hill
Phillips traveled to Poland, where he and family members discovered a state-owned vodka called Belvedere — served in an ornate frosted glass bottle.
“It was these bottles that inspired us,” Phillips told Forbes, “to eventually create the luxury category with the launch of Belvedere.”
He bought the right to import Belvedere into the US, shipped bottles to a number of celebrities in 1995 and ran a modern influencer campaign a decade before most social media sites were online.
“We created a few hundred very beautiful Belvedere gift boxes and sent them to 200 industry leaders, actors and actresses, and celebrities and artists,” Phillips told Forbes. “We ran an ad in the Wall Street Journal in the Tiffany section – page three, top right – that only targeted the 200 people who had received that box in the mail that week.”
The trick worked.
A decade later, Phillips eventually sold the rights to Belvedere to luxury giant LVMH.
In 2012, Phillips moved on to run Talenti gelato, which started as a small ice cream maker in Dallas.
A picture of Phillips in his youth
A picture of Phillips’ father, Artie Pfefer, who died in combat in Vietnam six months after the now-congressman was born
Phillips displays a transgender flag in his office. The congressman holds many of the same positions as Biden but is pushing for a new generation of leadership
Under Phillips, it is now an upscale brand sold in grocery stores across the country.
He sold it to Unilever in 2014 – when sales reached $120 million – for an undisclosed amount.
But not every business venture was a profitable success.
After Talenti, Phillips invested in a coffee and crepe shop concept in 2016 that failed in 2022 when Penny’s Coffee’s two Twin Cities locations closed their doors.
But for congressional elections and now for a presidential campaign, Phillips has one indispensable attribute: money.
The “charming liquor heir,” as he was first dubbed when he ran for Congress in 2018 — rejecting the presidency from another businessman, former President Donald Trump — has a net worth of, according to last year’s disclosure $20.5 million to $70 million report.
In his first bid, the moderate Democrat managed to turn a suburb of a congressional district in Minneapolis blue for the first time since 1958.
As for the family, Phillips is a divorced father of two daughters – Daniela and Pia, with Pia being a cancer survivor.
In 2019, he married Annalize Glick.
His dog Henry, a Norwich Terrier, is often seen on Capitol Hill.