Phillips announces campaign layoffs, says he will remain in race

Longshot Democratic presidential contender Dean Phillips announced that he would lay off a significant portion of his campaign staff but said he would remain in the race.

“I found it almost impossible to raise enough to do this campaign the way I want. And today, sadly, I had to announce layoffs to a lot of my staff members,” the Minnesota lawmaker said in a video posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Friday.

Though the announcement fueled intense speculations that Phillips might end his presidential bid soon, Phillips was adamant that he would not give up. A spokeswoman for the campaign reiterated on Saturday that Phillips planned to stay in the race until the Democratic National Convention in August.

Phillips was scheduled to appear in Michigan this weekend, ahead of the Feb. 27 presidential primary, but the spokeswoman also confirmed the cancellation of all upcoming travel. He’s expected to stay in Washington, D.C., instead, she said.

The Minnesota congressman has struggled to gain any traction in fundraising or polling since his launch in late October. He lost to a write-in campaign on behalf of President Joe Biden in New Hampshire last month by a 44-point margin. And in South Carolina, his defeat was even more crushing: Biden garnered 96 percent of the vote, and Phillips failed to clear 2 percent. He was also topped by self-help author Marianne Williamson, who has since dropped out of the race.

Phillips’ presidential bid has faced other controversies. He scrubbed “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” language from his campaign website, after he was publicly prodded to do so by his own donor. Phillips flirted with a third-party bid, floating running on the No Labels ticket, before ultimately backtracking over the course of 48 hours.

Nonetheless, Phillips has centered his bid on Biden’s age, arguing that the 81-year-old president is vulnerable in a contest against former President Donald Trump, who is 77.

Following the special counsel’s report, which referred to Biden as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Phillips took to X to describe Biden’s “physical and communicative declines I’ve witnessed over the past few years,” calling them “sad and troubling, but not unusual for an 81 year-old man.”