Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein speaks at the University of Southern Maine’s Portland campus on Oct. 7, 2024. She is accompanied by Kwame Che Shakur (left) and Faisal Khan with Carolina Peace Center (right). | Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star
The Abandon Harris campaign, a group that has actively campaigned against reelecting a Democrat in November, announced Monday it is endorsing Green Party nominee Jill Stein for president.
“We are not choosing between a greater evil and a lesser evil,” stated the group in a statement. “We are confronting two destructive forces: one currently overseeing a genocide and another equally committed to continuing it. Both are determined to see it through. We call on Muslim-Americans and all those who stand firmly against genocide to vote for the Green Party in 2024.”
The group originally rallied in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel to campaign against the reelection of President Joe Biden, angered at his administration’s support of Israel’s military response in Gaza. It shifted to opposing Vice President Kamala Harris once she became the Democratic nominee.
Stein, and running mate Dr. Rudolph Ware, are currently on the ballot in 38 states, including Michigan, while also running write-in campaigns in eight other states, plus Washington, D.C.
According to the Stein campaign, taken together, that represents 510 potential electoral votes, although national polling has Stein at 1%, less than even Robert Kennedy Jr., who has since dropped his independent bid and endorsed former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
Regardless, Stein said she was “thrilled” to have the endorsement.
“In combination with our endorsement from the Muslim American Public Affairs Council, this further demonstrates our campaign’s growing appeal to voters who reject genocide, many of them with family and friends in Gaza and the wider Middle East, and who are looking for a real alternative to the AIPAC-backed parties of war and Wall Street who will stop at nothing to feed the war machine,” she said.
Abandon Harris plans to formally announce the endorsement on Wednesday at the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn.
This is Stein’s third campaign for the White House as the Green Party candidate, having made previous runs in 2012 and then again in 2016, when she received nearly 1.5 million votes, as well as criticism that by pulling votes away from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her campaign helped elect Donald Trump.
Stein has also drawn criticism for her connections to Russia, having attended a 2015 dinner in Moscow celebrating the 10th birthday of Russian TV network RT, an event also attended by President Vladimir Putin. Also at that dinner, was retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who later was forced to resign as Trump’s national security adviser for lying about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States.
Democrats have also claimed that Stein recently expressed support for three individuals facing federal changes in Florida for a “malign influence campaign,” which included spreading Russian propaganda, and illegally interfering in U.S. elections.
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