Jill Stein, the Green Party‘s two-time presidential nominee, declared on Thursday that she will run for the presidency in 2024.
“The political structure is flawed. In a social media video announcing her candidacy, Stein stated, “The two Wall Street parties are paid and bought for.”
“While Republicans don’t even make such promises in the first place, Democrats have repeatedly betrayed their pledges of support for working people, youth, and the climate,” the speaker stated.
In 2012 and 2016, Stein was the presidential nominee of the Green Party. Democrats took offense at her 2016 candidacy, accusing her of alienating traditional Democratic voters in pivotal swing states from their presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton.
The strength of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign is beginning to be questioned, and this is when Stein made his announcement. In a hypothetical rematch, former president Donald Trump, who is the front-runner for the GOP nomination in 2024, leads Biden by a narrow margin, according to a recent CNN poll.
In a four-way race for the presidency, Cornel West was at 4% and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was at 16% according to the same poll. Although Stein will probably steal votes from West and Kennedy in elections, her name alone will be enough to enrage liberals who are still bitter about her 2016 bid. Support for third-party candidates in polls seldom translates into equal support in elections.
Stein has consistently refuted the allegation that she was a “spoiler” in the election that propelled Trump to the presidency.
The situation is more nuanced than that: she received more votes than Trump did in the crucial swing states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. However, if the Green nominee hadn’t been on the ticket, it is still unclear whether Stein supporters would have supported Clinton, who has long been unpopular with far-left voters.
By now, Stein has become well-versed in responding to those charges, which include baseless allegations that she intentionally assisted Russian meddling in the 2016 election; the connection stems from her participation in a state-sponsored “Russia Today” event in Moscow in 2015 and Russian troll farm activities that supported her campaign.
In an interview with CNN in July, Stein argued in favor of third-party insurgents during the period when she was advising West’s presidential campaign during its transition from the obscure People’s Party to the Green Party (and prior to West’s eventual decision to run as an independent).
She said, “Those who oppose an unjust and corrupt system are not new to its attempts to defend itself.” “Because it supported abolitionists assuming political power, the abolitionist party that existed before the Civil War and the Republican Party today was also vilified as a spoiler.”
At the time, Stein was praising West and the work she had done to integrate the renowned thinker into the party system, along with the efforts of other Green Party supporters like journalist Chris Hedges and former running mate Ajamu Baraka.
But from now on, Stein will most likely lead the Green Party once more.