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Jill Stein is generally supportive of LGBTQ+ rights and other progressive causes, but there are worries that she'll cut into the Democratic vote.
Jill Stein, who announced Thursday that she’s again seeking the Green Party’s nomination for president, is a supporter of LGBTQ+ rights and other progressive causes. But her entry into the race has aroused some worries that she will take votes away from President Joe Biden.
Stein, 73, is a physician from Massachusetts. She ran for president as the Greens’ nominee in 2012 and 2016 as well. She received 0.4 percent of the vote nationwide in 2012 and 1.1 percent in 2016.
But that vote in 2016 included enough in the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin that some Democrats blamed her for Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in those states.
In the three states, “her vote total exceeded Trump’s narrow victory margins,” CNN notes. “But it is — and will remain — unclear whether Stein voters would have turned out for Clinton, long unpopular with far-left voters, had the Green nominee not been on the ballot.” Stein herself has rejected the idea that she was a spoiler.
She will almost assuredly be the Greens’ nominee. Others who have entered the race from the left include university professor Cornel West and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., both running as independents.
In her campaign announcement video, posted to social media, Stein says the American political system is broken and that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have ordinary people’s interests at heart.
“People are tired of being thrown under the bus by wealthy elites and their bought politicians,” she says in the video.
“The two Wall Street parties are bought and paid for,” she continues. “Sixty percent of us now say the bipartisan establishment has failed us and we need a party that serves the people. … Democrats have betrayed their promises for working people, youth, and the climate again and again, while Republicans don’t even make such promises in the first place.”
The video includes images of war, book-banning efforts, and people experiencing homelessness. Stein pledges to end the “endless war machine,” raise the minimum wage, fight climate change, address student debt and medical debt, and provide health care for all.
Before running for president, Stein ran for governor and secretary of state in Massachusetts and state representative, but she did not win any of these elections. She has been elected twice to the town meeting in her hometown of Lexington.
As a doctor, she specialized in internal medicine. She also has been a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. She has a bachelor’s degree in social relations from Harvard College, where she was involved in the student activism of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and a medical degree from Harvard Medical.
She is cofounder of the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities and coauthor of In Harm’s Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development and Environmental Threats to Healthy Aging.
She is known for protesting at coal plants and testifying before legislative bodies about environmental concerns, Ballotpedia notes. She is a recipient of Clean Water Action’s Not in Anyone’s Backyard Award, the Children’s Health Hero Award, and the Toxic Action Center’s Citizen Award.
She has scheduled a campaign kickoff event for November 21.
