Rep. Dean Phillips, Dem challenger to Biden, hosted campaign event in NH — and zero people attended

Rep. Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat who is running against President Joe Biden in the 2024 Democrat presidential primary, hosted a campaign event in New Hampshire — and not a single prospective voter showed up.

On Tuesday morning, Phillips ventured to Manchester, New Hampshire's largest city, to speak with residents about his vision for America. Joined by members of his staff, he parked his "Government Repair Truck" outside a DoubleTree hotel and prepared to serve rounds of piping-hot Dunkin' coffee to attendees for what he dubbed a "coffee hour" with area voters.

The event, held just two weeks before the New Hampshire primary, was likely doomed from the start. Not only does Biden enjoy a strong lead in the primary polls in that state — even though he will not even appear on the primary ballot and needs voters to write his name in to have a hope of winning — but the temperatures on that January day in New England hovered well below freezing at just 22 degrees.

Whatever the reason, the cold or lack of interest, no one but a smattering of reporters attended the event, and Phillips resorted to pouring the coffee for his staff. "Sometimes if you build it, they don’t come," Phillips reportedly quipped in self-deprecation, putting a clever twist on the famous line from the 1989 movie "Field of Dreams."

Phillips' spokeswoman Katie Dolan claimed that the congressman eventually met with some voters once the event was moved inside the hotel. "We met with voters this AM — just indoors instead of outdoors," she said.

While Phillips did take a picture with about a dozen or so individuals, as the New York Post noted, many of those in the picture with him "did not appear to be of voting age." The outlet added that at the same time Phillips was hosting his campaign stop, the hotel was hosting the New England College Convention 2024, an event designed to give young people a taste of the primary campaign experience.

Phillips, 54, is currently polling in the single digits in New Hampshire, according to RealClearPolitics. Though the odds are stacked against him, Phillips still continues to try to make his case to anyone who will listen that at 81, Biden is too old to defeat former President Donald Trump in 2024 and that a second Trump term represents a threat to "democracy."

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