Democratic primary candidate Dean Phillips said President Joe Biden’s numbers in the New Hampshire primary prove he is “not a strong incumbent.”
Biden won the symbolic Democratic primary Tuesday night with 51.6% of the write-in vote, while Phillips received 19.7%, according to The New York Times’ (NYT) results. Fifty-three percent of voters said Biden is not “too old” to serve a second term, while 47% said the opposite, according to a Fox News voter analysis.
“I’ve been in business most of my life, Steve. I wish I could tell you about a success where we start from zero and had 20% market share in ten weeks. I mean, that’s what this is about and you know, as I said for many weeks before this, I respect Joe Biden, but even those numbers last night [are] not those of a strong incumbent and as you pointed out earlier on your show today, the lowest approval numbers in measurable history and I’m trying to wake up my party to what is an impending disaster,” Phillips told Fox News’ Steve Doocy.
Phillips and best-selling author Marianne Williamson are the two candidates challenging Biden in the 2024 Democratic race. Phillips argued voters would rather see a matchup between himself and Republican primary candidate Nikki Haley. Haley lost the Republican New Hampshire primary to former President Donald Trump 54.6% to 43.2%, according to results posted by The NYT. (RELATED: Meet The Little-Known Democratic Congressman Running For Joe Biden’s Job)
“Steve, I’ve been saying for a year,” Phillips added. “The president could have cemented his legacy, done what he essentially promised, which is to serve a term and be a bridge. He acknowledged there are fifty Democrats that could win this, that should win this, and the truth is that, I think Joe Biden is the only person that Donald Trump can beat and reverse as well, and we are facing a circumstance where most of this country wants neither of these people.”
Polls have shown many Democrats do not want Biden to run for reelection, particularly due to his age and job performance. 48% of Democrats believe Biden is too old to serve a second term, a Yahoo/YouGov poll from March found. A New York Times/Siena poll from July 2022 found that 64% of Democratic primary voters believe a different candidate should be nominated in the 2024 presidential election.
Recent polls have found Trump leading Biden in several key battleground states in a hypothetical 2024 general election. Trump leads the incumbent president by 10 points, according to a CNN/SSRS poll from Dec. 11. An Oct. 11 Emerson College poll found Trump with a nine-point lead.