President Joe Biden has a new 2024 Democratic primary challenger: U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN). 

CBS News reports:

Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota has decided to challenge President Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination, launching his 2024 campaign on Friday morning in New Hampshire, where he filed to appear on the state's primary ballot.

This comes after Biden's former top Democratic challenger - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - decided to exit the Democratic primary race and to instead run as an independent candidate.

At the time of this writing, the polls are showing Marianne Williamson to be Biden's closest Democratic rival, although, as we will see, Williamson is in a distant second.

Phillips on why he is running

It is not because Phillips thinks that Biden has been a terrible president who has led the country astray. Phillips, in fact, has made it clear that he believes that Biden "has done a spectacular job."

"I think President Biden has done a spectacular job for our country," Phillips said in an interview with CBS News.

Rather, Phillips says that he is running for at least two reasons: because he believes that it is time for a new generation of Democrats to take over and because he is concerned about polling that shows that Biden could lose to former President Donald Trump in the 2024 general election.

Phillips, in the interview, said, "[I]t's not about the past. This is an election about the future. I will not sit still and not be quiet in the face of numbers that are so clearly saying that we're going to be facing an emergency next November."

Here, Phillips is referring to the possibility of another Trump presidency.

Looking ahead

There is every reason to believe that Biden will be able to defeat Phillips in the 2024 Democratic Primary.

To help put things into perspective, Biden, according to Real Clear Politics, currently has a 61.3 percentage point lead over his next closest Democratic rival, namely, Williamson.

Thus far, no other candidate has been able to make significant inroads on Biden. Even Kennedy, before becoming an independent candidate, trailed Biden by a very wide margin.

At the moment, Phillips has not been included in 2024 polling. So, it is unclear what he is polling at. It is also unclear whether Phillips would pose a more significant challenge to Trump than Biden, which is something that Phillips clearly believes to be true.

Trump is currently leading the Republican 2024 primary field by a minimum of 46.5 percentage points. And, Trump is leading Biden in the general election by a little under one percentage point, on average.