Most of Minnesota’s top political leaders inside the DFL Party have weighed in on whether President Joe Biden should continue his campaign for another term in the White House.
But among Minnesota Democrats holding or seeking elected office in Washington, D.C., just one has remained silent on Biden’s candidacy since his June 27 debate against Donald Trump, which even his most ardent of supporters, like Gov. Tim Walz, called a “poor” debate and one of his “worst days” in front of the public.
Kelly Morrison, a state legislator from Deephaven, has not yet made a statement on Biden’s candidacy even as each of her would-be DFL Minnesota congressional delegation colleagues have issued statements:
Alpha News emailed requests to Morrison’s campaign multiple times last week asking if she has or would issue a public statement on criticisms from those in her own party on Biden’s candidacy. Morrison’s campaign has yet to return those requests for comment on the subject.
Morrison’s silence on Biden’s candidacy comes on the heels of a call earlier this month by Congresswoman Angie Craig for Biden to suspend his campaign. In that July 7 statement, Craig called on Biden “to step aside as the Democratic nominee for a second term” in the White House.
“Given what I saw and heard from the President during last week’s debate in Atlanta, coupled with the lack of a forceful response from the President himself following that debate, I do not believe that the President can effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump,” Craig, a three-term Democrat representing Minnesota’s Second Congressional District, said in a statement, one week after the debate.
“This is not a decision I’ve come to lightly, but there is too much at stake to risk a second Donald Trump presidency,” Craig said. “That’s why I respectfully call on President Biden to step aside as the Democratic nominee for a second term as President and allow for a new generation of leaders to step forward.”
Presidential politics in suburban swing districts
The second and third congressional districts have been represented by DFLers since 2018. They both represent mostly suburban communities and share a border along the southwest Twin Cities suburbs. Both went for Republicans in the 2016 election. While the district borders have shifted slightly since a state-mandated 2022 redistricting took effect, it’s likely that the campaign between Craig and newly cemented Republican challenger Joe Teirab will be one of the more expensive U.S. House races in the nation.
In CD3, Rep. Dean Phillips has made news over the last 18 months for being the only elected member of Congress to openly challenge Biden for president. In 2023, Phillips launched a longshot presidential campaign, premising his platform on Biden being too old to adequately mount a re-election bid and govern in a second term.
Phillips, a longtime close friend of Morrison, eventually announced he would not seek a fourth term representing CD3. He threw his support to Morrison last fall when she had a brief challenge from a Biden surrogate and Democrat organizer, DNC committeeman Ron Harris.
While Morrison and Phillips are both considered progressive Democrats in a purple congressional district, the stark difference between the two exists when the topic of Biden’s candidacy has come into the forefront.
Phillips was ahead of the curve among his DFL colleagues in his outspoken criticism of Biden’s fitness to defeat Trump and maintain his faculties in a second term. But as other Democrats such as Craig and Sen. Tina Smith began expressing public doubt in Biden’s fitness to defeat Trump this November, Morrison has hardly said anything publicly about the 46th president since she announced her pursuit of a congressional seat last fall.
One of the more progressive DFL lawmakers in the state Senate since she was elected to represent District 45 (a handful of Lake Minnetonka communities) in 2022, Morrison officially resigned her elected office one month ago, as she focuses on her campaign to represent Minnesota’s Third Congressional District.
Morrison publicly expressed support for Biden’s candidacy this April when she attended a speech Jill Biden made in Bloomington.
“It was an honor to hear Dr. Jill Biden speak in Bloomington tonight!” Morrison wrote. “Inspiring to be in a room full of enthusiastic supporters who are fired up and ready to re-elect President Joe Biden.”
Since then, Morrison has been silent on Biden’s campaign on all her social media platforms, apart from a photo she posted Friday of her husband participating in a Veterans and Military Families for Biden roundtable with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Her CD3 Republican opponent, Tad Jude, has taken advantage of Morrison’s silence on Biden’s political fallout this summer. The former judge criticized Morrison last week for not following the lead of Phillips earlier this year and Craig in recent weeks.
“Congressman Dean Phillips raised the issue of President Biden’s deteriorating condition at the appropriate time, when voters had an opportunity in the primaries to discuss this important national security issue,” Jude said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, Morrison joined the partisan Democrat party machine in squelching any debates with either Congressman Dean Phillips or with other challengers such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This stomping on democracy even included working to keep Phillips and Kennedy completely off the ballot in other states.”
A medical doctor by trade, Morrison has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood. As a state lawmaker, she has sponsored a handful of far-reaching legislative proposals to expand abortion access in Minnesota, including signing on as a lead author of the Protect Reproductive Options Act last session, which many consider to be one of the most extreme abortion laws in the country.
Morrison has campaigned tirelessly to pass a bill she sponsored that would implement ranked-choice voting statewide. She also joined with other metro area legislators to sponsor legislation that would expand a mining ban by 1.9 million acres in northern Minnesota and carried a bill that would mandate recyclable packaging, a measure opposed by numerous industry associations across Minnesota and the nation, including the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce.
Hank Long
Hank Long is a journalism and communications professional whose writing career includes coverage of the Minnesota legislature, city and county governments and the commercial real estate industry. Hank received his undergraduate degree at the University of Minnesota, where he studied journalism, and his law degree at the University of St. Thomas. The Minnesota native lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and four children. His dream is to be around when the Vikings win the Super Bowl.
