a majority consistently said they wanted "someone else" as the nominee through 2022-23.
I guess those polls were wrong. Or else he reeled them back in somehow.
It’s more like no one else stepped up to replace him
An inoffensive generic D Congressman jumped into the race and barely got any votes. If the majority of Democrats wanted Biden to be replaced, Phillips would have had enough appeal to most of them that he would have gotten a whole lot more votes than he got.
It's not like Biden squeaked one out and then I'm saying "haha I guess those polls were WRONG after alll!!!1" If that had happened, sure maybe the polls were right but Phillips just didn't have quite enough appeal to tap into it. But given the margins, it's pretty clear that was nothing for Phillips to tap into in the first place.