It’s not like President Joe Biden has a whole lot of competition from Democrats in the 2024 presidential election primaries, but Florida wants to cancel it altogether. Simply put, the Florida Democratic Party has decided it just doesn’t need to hold a presidential primary this year.
National Review reports that those actually running against Biden thus far stand a very small chance against Biden. Marianna Williamson is getting about 9 percent in most national polls, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to run as an Independent, and Dean Phillips is currently sitting at roughly 3.5 percent in the RealClearPoliticsaverage of recent national polling.
Regardless of his poor numbers, Minnesota congressman Dean Phillips plans to go head-to-head with Florida’s Democrats. Not only is Phillips’ campaign considering a lawsuit against the Florida Democratic Party, they said that it is planning to take its fight to the Democratic National Committee.
The representative’s aides argue that Florida Democrats are in violation of the national party’s rules that require delegates to the Democratic National Convention “be allocated in a fashion that fairly reflects the expressed presidential preference or uncommitted status of the primary voters or, if there is no binding primary, the convention and/or caucus participants.”
POLITICO reports on the timeline surrounding the sordid tale:
The delegate selection plan cited by Florida Democrats does not spell out an exact deadline for candidates to ask to be placed on the primary ballot. An initial version of that plan from early April said the party would prepare and approve a list of “recognized” candidates. A revised version, submitted to the state on Nov. 1, was changed to say the list would be approved at the state party convention. That convention began Oct. 27, the day Phillips launched his campaign, and ended Oct. 29, which is when the state party approved Biden as the only candidate.
Phillips’ campaign said the representative first sent two letters to the Florida Democrats on Nov. 7 in which he provided staff contact information and stated that he was writing “to emphasize my personal commitment to encouraging full participation by our supporters in Florida’s delegate selection process.”
Eden Giagnorio, a spokesperson for the Florida Democratic Party, provided a different timeline. She said that Phillips’ campaign first reached out to the state party on Nov. 22 requesting a conversation. Two days ago, she said the campaign spoke with the party’s executive director and “we learned for the first time that they were asking about this, which is not enough time because we have to give our state executive committee 10 days’ notice to convene them to vote.”
However, Giagnorio acknowledged, “There’s no requirement for presidential candidates to do anything to get on the ballot.” She said there are no plans to add additional names to the list of approved candidates by today’s deadline.
Phillips’ aides argue that Florida Democrats are in violation of the national party’s rules that require delegates to the Democratic National Convention “be allocated in a fashion that fairly reflects the expressed presidential preference or uncommitted status of the primary voters or, if there is no binding primary, the convention and/or caucus participants.”
A DNC spokesperson said the committee offered to provide guidance to the Phillips campaign on state party processes weeks ago, but that the campaign did not take up the offer.