Coons says potential Biden primary challenge by House Democrat ‘doesn’t make me nervous’

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said he was not nervous about a potential primary challenge to President Biden’s reelection campaign, amid reports that Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) was considering entering the race. 

In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Coons, who is one of several co-chairs of Biden’s reelection campaign, touted Biden’s endorsements, legislative accomplishments and his leadership on the world stage.

“It doesn’t make me nervous, frankly. President Biden has the strongest record of legislative accomplishment since LBJ, and you’re beginning to see the impact: 13 million jobs created by the private sector, 800,000 good manufacturing jobs, 35,000 infrastructure projects out there in the country,” Coons said. “Dean Phillips can’t cite anything like that.”

He continued, touting Biden’s recent success at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, earlier this month. 

“President Biden has made us stronger on the world stage. The Vilnius Summit showed his agility, his capabilities, the strength with which he’s helped rally NATO to the defense of Ukraine, and the strength with which he’s delivered on things Trump promised, like rebuilding infrastructure, cutting prescription drug prices. Where Biden has delivered gives him an incredible record to run on,” he said. 

Phillips is a moderate Democrat who has at times been critical of Biden. He has said publicly that he does not think Biden should run for reelection, citing his age as a major factor. 

Biden currently faces two primary challenges: from Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., neither of whom poses a serious challenge to Biden. 

Coons boasted about the substantial early support Biden has gotten, saying, “Just look at the endorsements President Biden is getting earlier in the cycle, more broadly than ever before.

“We’ve had contested primaries with sitting presidents. You’ve never seen a sitting president have as weak a field of potential opponents — Marianne Williamson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — as he has now. And the endorsements President Biden has earned from the building trades, from climate activists, from reproductive rights activists,” Coons said. 

“The base of the Democratic Party, as broadly as I’ve ever seen in my life, is endorsing President Biden because of what he’s gotten done,” he said.