Rep. Dean Phillips' presidential campaign means 3rd District race is suddenly interesting
MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District race wasn't expected to get a lot of attention this election season.
But that was before three-term Congressman Dean Phillips announced he was running for president.
Now major primary challengers have emerged as Phillips continues to campaign in New Hampshire.
For more than 50 years Minnesota's 3rd Congressional District was solid GOP territory. The district includes the western suburbs of MInneapolis, including Minnetonka, Eden Prairie, Bloomington and Brooklyn Park. But since Phillips' 2018 win the district has been comfortably Democratic. Phillips won his last reelection by a landslide of 19 percentage points.
But now Phillips is running for president. And while Phillips continues to draw criticism from fellow Democrats for challenging President Joe Biden, he is drawing some challengers of his own. In the past few weeks Sen. Kelly Morrison announced she is running. The state senator from Deephaven is an ob/gyn and was an assistant majority leader for House Democrats during the last DFL-dominated legislative session.
Ron Harris is also a candidate. He is a former chief resilience officer for the city of Minneapolis and is currently a Democratic National Executive Committee member. He was a guest on WCCO Sunday Morning at 10:30 a.m.
"I am running to make sure that we have effective Democratic leadership in the 3rd District, regardless of who is in the race, it doesn't change our calculus much in terms of our efforts to make sure that we are representing people, that we are running hard, that we are making sure that we are following through on our commitments and we anticipate running a strong and good race," he said.
No one from Phillips' campaign responded when WCCO asked if Phillips was planning to run for Congress again if his presidential campaign doesn't work out. Phillips has time to make up his mind — the final filing deadline for the Aug. 13, 2024 primary is in early June. That primary date has long been controversial with both parties. August is a time when most Minnesotans are checked out — on vacation or ready to go on one and voting is not top of mind. A low turnout is generally the case, and with a low turnout anything can happen.
You can watch WCCO Sunday Morning with Esme Murphy and Adam Del Rosso every Sunday at 6 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.
